Go Softly
by Rodwen Fefalas
Summary: After a long journey, Alice finally speaks the words she's been wanting to say since the day she met Bella and history shifts for both of them in so many ways.
1. Chapter 1

Alice had kept her distance when she and Bella first met. In fact, she was fairly sure she was on the best behavior she could've possibly been. She smiled and laughed and nodded and was her jolly own self while Edward preened and pawned off his new girlfriend to the rest of the world. When he brought Bella to the house for the first time, she gave the human a hug of appropriate length and did her best not to take a breath too deeply, even though Bella's scent tickled her nose and made the unreliable thump of her heart sing faster. Alice pulled away after a time and looked to the faces of her family, but nobody seemed to have noticed her reaction.

After Bella's birthday party, Alice wandered the house in her little black dress, doing quiet laps of the scene, now pristine and tidy after Jasper's outburst. She pictured the blood on Bella's arm and how close she'd come—they'd all come—to losing their tightly held control. Wrapping her arms around herself, Alice tiptoed down the hall until she came upon Rosalie's room, the door open to a warm interior where her "sister" sat at her vanity, combing her long hair over her shoulder.

Rosalie looked up when she noticed. "What's wrong?" she asked, her voice soft.

Alice gave her a small smile and walked into the room, placing a hand on each of Rosalie's shoulders and her chin atop Rosalie's head. "What do you think of Bella?" she whispered, watching Rosalie clean her brush in the mirror.

Rosalie smirked, her dark eyes glinting. "You know what I think of her."

"Is she really so bad in your mind?" Alice asked, wrapping her arms around her sister's shoulders.

Shaking her head, Rosalie turned so that they didn't have to look in the mirror to see one another. "What's this about, Alice?"

Letting go, Alice stood back and folded her hands behind her. She felt the end of the bed railing brush her palm. "Nothing, I was just curious."

Rosalie gave her a once-over and then nodded. Standing, she touched Alice's cheek with the tips of her fingers. "Don't let her get to you," she whispered, moving to her tall wardrobe.

Alice stopped breathing for a second before disappearing from the room.

For the next few days, she contented herself with being close to, but not as close with, Bella. Edward kept his distance, but that didn't mean she had and and she took every opportunity to glance at their young friend whenever they passed by the school. On the day that he came home with an even deeper scowl on his face than she'd seen in a long time, Alice felt her whole body plummet.

"I broke it off," he said after the rest of the family gathered in their well-ordered and brilliantly lit living room. She thought she felt a ripple go through the family before wondering if it was just her own body trembling. "We need to leave town."

Alice watched in horror as Carlisle, ever the understanding protector of his family's lifestyle, nodded and told everyone to pack their bags. She left the room last, with Rosalie stalling on the stairs to watch her from above.

"Alice? Come on," she whispered.

Alice wrapped her arms around herself again, lowering herself to sit on the edge of the sofa. Her ears rang with Carlisle's words and she swallowed over and over again, trying to wash the dryness from her mouth. Blinking a couple of times, she stared at the floor until Rosalie appeared before her, eyes wide and searching and luminous gold.

"Alice," Rosalie whispered, lifting her fingertips to her sister's cheek as Alice's tears blurred her vision.

"Alice."

Jasper's voice broke the spell and both vampires looked up on his approach. He joined Rosalie in kneeling before her, his concern a mirror of their "sister's." "What's wrong?" he asked, looking from one woman to the other. "Are you having another vision?"

Alice shook her head and brushed them both off, standing. "I'm fine," she whispered, making her way to the stairs. Before she reached the landing, she heard Rosalie whisper, "I think she's sad about leaving Bella," and her heart caught in her chest.

Jasper took a second before he answered, "There's nothing to be done about that."

Clenching her jaw, Alice moved down the hall and stuffed her suitcases full of clothes, every movement an angry jerking and punching of fists. She tried not to feel the silk an satin and toulle as it crushed between her fingers. She tried not to think of Bella's face never lightening when Alice showed her wares to the girl. She tried not to think of everything they'd never do.

"I'm fine," she said when Jasper came in and touched her on the wrist.

She repeated this phrase when they fled the state and then when Edward fled the country. She repeated it until she woke, gasping, from a vision in which Bella flung herself off a cliff. With fumbling fingers, she relayed this news to her "brother," who hung up in time for the future to change. Bidding her family goodbye, she raced back to Forks at speeds unimaginable to humans. Her body felt alive with the news, both good and bad, and she didn't know what to do with all of it—rejoice that their Bella wasn't dead, or despair that their Edward was going to destroy himself with his outdated knowledge.

As fantastic as the reunion proved to be—Alice's heart beat harder at the sight of their disheveled friend—she forced herself from the attachment and explained what had to be done. As she could've predicted, Bella agreed to help and they raced to the car. Tension sang between them with the news until they reached the airport. Once on board, Bella slipped her hand into Alice's and gifted the vampire a sweet smile that didn't match the shadows deepening on Bella's face.

"I've missed you," she whispered.

Alice giggled, giddy with the feeling of their hands touching and of the slight relief coming from not thinking about Edward for a second. "Likewise," she said.

Business resumed in Italy, where Alice's heart scattered and shattered as they broke apart momentarily before reuniting in the Volturi castle. Despite her best efforts, she relented to Aro a future that she'd seen, months ago, when everything between Edward and Bella started happening. What she didn't show him was what she'd hidden behind it—a sadness at a secret kept so long despite how much she wished it away.

They returned to a lot of commotion caused by Bella's disappearance and Alice resumed her front, one that pained her as greatly as her worst visions did. It wasn't until Bella found herself in trouble and they holed her up at the house that Rosalie finally approached her.

"You've hardly spent two seconds away from that girl," her sister said while they popped soda cans in the kitchen and stuck popcorn in the microwave.

Alice shrugged and watched the soda fizzle as she poured it into glasses. "I've missed her is all," she said, but out of the corner of her eye, she could see Rosalie shaking her head.

"It's more than that. It's about what you asked me before. I've been thinking about it and I think you're right."

"What?" Alice asked. Her body stiffened and she had to put the soda can down or risk dropping it.

"You like her, don't you?"

For a moment, the air seemed to suck itself out of the room into a vacuous hole. When it returned, Alice burst out laughing. Her mirth helped hide the tremor in her body.

"What's so funny?" Rosalie asked, her face souring.

Alice ran down a mental list of lies before she shook her head and her laughter turned to tears. "I don't know," she whispered and hid her face in her hands. "It's so impossible."

Arms wound their way around her shoulders until Alice calmed. "That's what we thought about a lot of things before we became vampires," Rosalie whispered.

"But the future—"

"Is uncertain. You're proof of this. Now go talk to her," Rosalie said, stepping back and sliding over to the counter. She handed Alice a paper towel. "I'll watch the popcorn."

Alice went back into the living room where Bella sat watching the movie with glazed eyes, looking up when the vampire resumed her seat. "Hey, I was wondering where you went," she said, throwing a corner of the blanket onto Alice and nodding at the screen. "Lola just met up with Daniel and they're going to a club to meet Grayson and Jean. I think Lola has a crush on Jean, though, so that's why she's so interested in having this get-together."

Nodding, Alice slipped under the blanket and tried to pay attention to the movie, but her eyes kept roaming back to Bella's face, the human's soft smile growing every time something good happened to one of the characters. In the kitchen, she heard Rosalie bustling about and the silence told her that the popcorn had long stopped cooking. What Rosalie was waiting for in returning to the living room could've been anyone's guess, but Alice thought she knew. Taking a deep breath, Alice stared pointedly at Bella's face.

"Can I tell you something?" she asked.

Bella blinked and looked at Alice, her smile slight and tugging at the corners of her lips. "Yeah, sure. What's up?"

Alice studied her friend for another second, then swallowed hard. "Promise you won't get mad?"

Bella's brow dipped, but the smile stayed. "O-kay?"

Biting her lip, Alice clenched her fingers beneath the blanket and tried to keep her eyes on Bella's. "I really like you."

Bella gave a small laugh. "I really like you, too," she said.

Alice's heart dropped and she shook her head as the words started pouring out of Bella's mouth. "No, I mean, I really like you—as more than a friend."

Silence fell between them as Bella held Alice's stare, her mouth closing, but her smile never going away. Alice tried not to think about the silence in the kitchen that matched the one in the living room with them, or about how Rosalie was listening in. She tried not to think about the stillness she now felt in her body, with the weight of her secret in the air and the pressures of never telling her friend how she felt hovering over her.

"Oh wow," Bella whispered. The glazed look in her eyes cleared and she studied Alice's face with an intensity that even took Alice by surprise. "I mean, you're serious? You're not just fooling with me?"

Alice frowned and shook her head. "Why would I fool with something like this?"

Bella's smile wavered. "Because of the future you saw. Back in Italy?"

If Alice's heart had a beat, it would've stilled. "The future's never certain."

She waited for a long time for Bella to speak. The human's lip quivered and her eyes filled with soft tears that she pressed away with the first knuckle of her finger. At the sight of those tears, Alice felt her whole body flushing with heat and she put her hands to her mouth.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to upset you," she said.

Bella waved a hand, though, the corners of her mouth quivering as she smiled. "You didn't. That's just it. Believe it or not, this is the best news I've heard in my life."

Alice's breath caught in her throat. "What?"

Blinking back more tears, Bella stared her in the eyes until Alice thought that she would melt beneath her friend's gaze. "All this time, I thought it was Edward I was attracted to. He was the one who sought me out and tried to involve me in everything and I'd thought that was great," she said, chewing on her nail.

Still hardly able to breathe, Alice studied her friend. "Except?" she whispered.

Dropping her hand, Bella shrugged. "Except—I don't know. He was stalking me, wasn't he? And yeah, it felt nice to have someone pay attention and everything, but something just wasn't right. Sure, I wanted to be safe, but I also wanted to have fun and that's not something he believes very much in. I thought that was what love was: having someone who made you feel safe." She shrugged again.

Alice shook her head. "I'm still not understanding."

Bella gave her a small smile. "You don't do what he does. You believe I'm capable of more than that. You want me to get out and try new things. You want me to feel safe, but you don't want to stifle me. You love me because I'm stubborn and because I'm reserved. And I love you because you let me be who I am, but you don't let me box myself in and you won't box me in, either. You're happy to see me and you don't let your fears rule your actions."

Running a hand over her hair, Alice frowned. "Are you trying to say what I think you're saying?"

For the first time, Bella laughed. Her head fell back and her mouth gaped and her shoulders shook and the sound of brilliant mirth filled the room. Alice watched with incredulity as her friend laughed, trying to decide if it was at or with her. After a few beats, Bella wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Yes, I am. I'm sorry for being so obtuse," she said and leaned over. Their lips met softly, just as their hands did where they sought one another out beneath the heavy blanket shared between them. It only lasted for a second or two, but the second felt like a lifetime to Alice, and that—she believed—was saying something.

"What are you going to tell Edward?" Alice whispered when Bella broke the kiss, leaving only an inch of space between them.

The corner of Bella's mouth quirked. "The same thing you're going to tell Jasper: the truth."

Alice bit her lip. "Do you think he'll be okay?"

Sighing, Bella glanced at the TV. Lola and Jean sat together, hands clasped, with Lola resting her head on Jean's shoulder as the credits rolled by and filled their background of pink and gold sunset across a beach with black-lettered names and titles. "If he's a man of his word, yes," she said, twining her fingers with Alice's until the heat of her palm warmed the vampire's icy touch to lukewarm temperatures. "And I think we will be, too."

A great whoop came from the kitchen and both human and vampire looked over to see Rosalie applauding in the kitchen, a broad smile on her face and her eyes glittering as she studied the two of them. "About damn time already," she called, disappearing into the room behind her. When she emerged again, she carried popcorn loaded with butter that she settled between them while she flopped onto the end of the couch. "Now who's hungry?"


	2. Chapter 2

Alice stayed with Jasper when he and the others returned after the sleepover. She kept Bella out of the corner of her eye, but she didn't have to watch her friend and lover to know what was going to happen with her and Edward. In her dream-state, a coma-like resting place where Alice went every night when the humans slept and where she chose to go when Bella finally fell into a fitful slumber, she saw. She saw long visions of Bella and Edward staying together. They sat in places of light and beauty, places very like the ones Edward had taken Bella to while they courted.

Seeing these places and knowing—or believing she knew—what would happen while they were there broke her heart a bit. She bit her lip and held Jasper's hand tighter, only to realize what she was doing and was about to do and relinquished her hold.

At one point during the day, Jasper touched her cheek. She gasped, waiting to feel him healing her troubled stirring of emotions, but it didn't happen. She didn't feel anything change. She only felt her heart grow heavy as she stared up into his face, his brow low over his eyes and his golden eyes searching hers. For a moment, she wished he wouldn't looked at her that way. She wished, more than anything, that he would already know and she wouldn't have to tell him.

"You're troubled. Why? What's wrong?" he asked, as she'd known he would.

Alice bit her lip again and touched the wrist of the hand touching her cheek. She watched him lean down a few inches and touch his nose to hers.

"Do you need my help?" he whispered.

A tear rose to Alice's eyes and she shook her head, smiling softly, though her lips trembled. His eyes stayed on hers. "I have something to tell you and I'm not sure you'll like it," she said.

The concern in his eyes flashed and grew wary. She felt the hand holding her cheek slide back into her hair to cradle the place where her skull and neck met, his fingertips massaging the small area there. Alice closed her eyes and let him go on, but she pressed her hands to her chest, as if she could hold back her breaking heart.

"Tell me?" he whispered.

Opening her eyes, Alice held the image of his face for as long as she could: his hair rolling around his ears in gentle curls, his eyes large and expressive with concern, his lips a small slash against his mouth, his chin strong, and all of this directed at her. Taking a deep breath, she nodded. Her fingers curled around his arm and she pulled him away, letting his touch slide across her skin until the contact was broken and they were as separate as they had been when they first discovered one another.

"I'm in love with Bella," she said.

She watched the news sink in. Jasper stared at her for a long moment, his eyes flicking back and forth between hers. When she didn't give him a joking laugh or smile or in any way repeal the statement, his hands, which had been suspended in the space between them as if to reach for her again and bring her back to be comforted in his arms, fell to his sides with a flap. His brow stayed low, but his eyes filled with the same tears that Alice's were now graced with.

"How?" he whispered, not trying to mask the hurt in his voice.

Taking another deep, rattling breath, Alice dropped her shoulders and stood up straighter. "I'm afraid I only just admitted having feelings for her the other night. I realized there was something special about her when we first met her, but I wasn't sure why. I knew why Edward liked her, but I didn't have any idea that I would feel the same way. She was just—incredibly important to me for a long time."

Jasper nodded, but he fell back a step. "Like a sister, you said."

Alice nodded back, but there was a weight in her nod that didn't exist in his. "I thought so. And then the birthday party happened, and we were all so afraid. I realized that night that I wasn't afraid of what would happen if any of us lost control, only that I was afraid of what would happen to her. When we left town, I felt the separation between myself and her as if it were a gulf between two parallel lines—a place I could long to see, a distance I could desire to cross. But when we left, I knew it wasn't something we could just go back to." She gave a small, humorless laugh. "The reason parallel lines are parallel is because they never touch. That was how I felt with her this whole time."

"As if you couldn't ever touch," Jasper said.

Alice nodded again, running the pad of her thumb over the knuckles of her opposite hand as she spoke. "Then I had visions—first the one about Bella and then the one about Edward. When I had the first one, my heart shattered. I could feel everything collapsing around me. When I discovered that she was alive, and then that Edward was going to kill himself because he didn't know—"

"You saw an opportunity," Jasper said, a small smile lifting his cheeks, but not meeting his eyes.

"I needed to go back to her. As awful as it sounds, Edward's decision to die allowed me to see her again. We rescued her and brought her back and rescued Edward, but the feelings didn't go away when we were all reunited again. By that time, they'd intensified, and I—" Alice choked, her eyes filling with new tears. She clenched her hands and swallowed the soft sob that rose in her throat.

"You couldn't bear it anymore," Jasper whispered. She heard him close the distance between them before his arms wrapped themselves around her shoulders and he pulled her close to his chest.

"I'm sorry," she whispered into his shoulder as her body trembled. She felt the press of his lips to her hair and his square hand up and down her back in slow, comforting circles. Everything inside her quieted, but she knew it wasn't because of his power. Jasper had a most comforting presence. She wasn't sure what she would do without it. "I'm sorry, but I can't help it. Bella—she brings out the best in me, and I know—I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I bring something good out of her. I see it every time we're together."

She felt him nod against her hair. With a final squeeze, he pulled back. Twin streaks of tears ran down his cheeks, but he had a soft smile on his face and his grip on her shoulders was bracing.

"I wish you both the best of luck," he whispered. Leaning over, he pressed his lips to her forehead and then stepped back so that neither of them touched the other. They regarded each other for a long time before he turned towards the door. Alice turned around just as he called out to her one last time.

"I'll always love you," Jasper said.

Alice smiled and nodded, both gestures of understanding, if not enthusiasm. He mirrored her actions, then disappeared into the hall, taking the weight of the world from her shoulders.


	3. Chapter 3

She didn't see Bella until later that night. Alice idled in her car—a yellow one, just like from Italy, so that Bella would know who it was—in front of the Swan house, drumming her nails on the steering wheel and scanning the darkness for her lover. If her heart had been working properly, it would've been racing.

At long last, Bella emerged from the woods behind her house. She worried her coat over her hands and her lips quivered at the ground, their corners rising and falling in staccato beats. Alice's good vision helped her to see the emotions at war on her friend's face, and she couldn't help but feel more of a kinship to her friend than ever before.

The troubled looks disappeared when Bella lifted her eyes and caught sight of Alice's car under the streetlight. Alice smiled, waving through the windshield. With a glance at her house, Bella hurried over, sliding into the passenger's side.

"Hey," she whispered, leaning over the center console to press a soft kiss to Alice's lips. They lingered for a second too long, drawing all conversation to a stop, and Alice could feel the levels of urgency in the car lowering to almost non-existent levels.

"Hey yourself," Alice whispered when they pulled back again. She tried not to touch her mouth, tried not to think about how, for all those years, Jasper's kisses had been what she'd called "electrifying." Now that she and Bella had shared two touches, Jasper's lips were sweet and kind and definitely loving, but that was all they'd been. For the millionth time since making this discovery the night before, Alice turned her revelation over in her mind before putting it away and sitting up. "Did you tell him?"

Bella took Alice's hand, running her thumb over the back of Alice's knuckles. She nodded once.

Alice bit her lip. "How did he take it?"

"The way I thought he would. He said that this is what I wanted, so he was true to his promise and he said we can stop seeing each other."

Shaking her head, Alice turned to stare out the windshield again. "He's good—when he wants to be. I thought for sure that—"

"We'd have problems?" Bella asked and laughed. Her grip tightened on Alice's hand for a moment. "Yeah, I thought so, too. It almost makes me feel bad."

Alice smiled at her and leaned her forehead against her lover's. "Almost," she said. A second later, she groaned. "Why does telling the truth have to be so hard?"

Bella's smile fell a bit. "I wish I knew. You haven't told Esme and Carlisle yet, have you?"

Alice sat up, shaking her head. "Not yet, no. I'm guessing you haven't told Charlie?"

Laughing, Bella studied her lover. "What do you think?" she asked, and then sat back, pressing her head into the headrest as she grit her teeth and covered her eyes with her free hand. "I feel like—like he won't get it. Or something. And I know Jake won't. I mean, he didn't even like Edward, so why would he like you?"

Alice bit her lip and nodded at her lap. In her peripheral, she saw Bella sit up, her jaw slack.

"Oh. No, that's not…oh, go, that sounded awful. Alice, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean—"

"No, it's okay," Alice said, trying to will the tears back into her eyes and loosen her grip on Bella's fingers. "I get it. My kind versus their kind and all." She could still feel her heart falling. When Bella kissed her on the cheek, she leaned into it, lifted their twined hands to kiss the back of Bella's.

"Look at me," Bella whispered.

Alice raised her head, studying the long trails of black and brown that made up Bella's eye color. The intensity of her lover's stare sent warmth she hadn't felt in years back through her limbs. More than anything, she wished she could snapshot this moment in time, with this exact feeling intact and attached, so that it would return to her just this way in her memory, instead of being a poor replication of half-remembered thoughts, the way pictures were.

"I'm going to tell Charlie. Tonight. As soon as I get inside, in fact," she said, pressing her lips to Alice's fingers. Alice smiled at her, at the softness of Bella's mouth. She wasn't sure she ever wanted to be away from it. When Bella lifted her head again, the intensity continued. "I'll tell Charlie and you'll tell Carlisle and Esme. Then we'll both talk to Jake in the morning."

For once, Alice just nodded and whispered, "Okay." A thrill went through her at the sight and sound of Bella taking charge. She knew the girl-woman had been prone to letting herself be led around, but now, with this new willingness she could see before her in her lover, she wondered if that had been a result of the girl-woman's own discomfort. Alice could feel her bubbliness settling down the more comfortable she became.

Perhaps, she wondered, the same can be said about Bella's desire to lead.

She watched Bella smile, a wide grin that softened her face and made her glow. They shared a final, lingering kiss and then Alice watched her lover go inside before Alice herself turned to home. She could already see Carlisle and Esme standing in the living room, where every major discussion was held, and she pushed her shoulders back.

Whatever happens, she told herself, you know who you are and what you can do. Whatever happens, things will be okay.

Alice nodded to herself, repeating this over in her head until she pulled into the driveway and made her way back into the house. She tried not to hear the silences, tried not to think about the orderliness of everything. She felt that she held a pebble in her hand, suspended over a long and unmoving and mirror-like pond, and that she was poised to drop it, breaking the gleaming surface of a glamorous world whose traditions ran as deeply as the knife edges of their silverware were sharp.


	4. Chapter 4

She found Carlisle and Esme sitting in Carlisle's study. The sight warmed something deep in Alice's otherwise lifeless heart. Her mother's legs, tucked under her body, peeked out from the knee-length hem of her long skirt and her pink-polished toes curled into the upholstery of the sitting chair. She cradled a book in the crook of her am and only once did she flip the page, though Alice knew she could read much faster than that.

Her father, on the other hand, sat behind a thin laptop, a small furrow in his brow and his chin in his hand. She could see his fingers sliding the mouse around in the gray light opposite his lamp. His back hunched and she caught herself staring at his posture, something so strange from a father who held himself in high regard and maintained an iron-straight back through even the most grueling struggles.

Two raps of Alice's knuckles on the door drew their attention to her. Esme closed the book, its snap gentle.

"Sweetheart, what is it?" Esme asked.

Alice twined her hands in front of her and stepped into the room. She watched Carlisle sit up into his signature flat-back posture, resting his hands on his knees while he trained his eyes on her. "I have something to tell you both."

"We're listening," Carlisle said as Esme unfurled herself from the chair.

Alice nodded. She took a deep breath and frowned at her hands. "I'm—" She broke off with a small laugh that she could feel. "This is going to sound ridiculous."

"Nothing's ridiculous, sweetheart," Esme said. When Alice looked up, her mother smiled a bit more and nodded to Carlisle. Alice wondered if she was referring to the fact that they were all vampires, but the notion sounded so silly that she couldn't bring herself to say it.

Taking another step into the room, Alice nodded again and pressed her hands to her thighs, running her fingers over the scratchy, beautiful material of her tailored dress pants. For a second, she thought about what Jasper had said when she'd bought them, about how he'd giggled a little at first and said they reminded him of the pants Carlisle wore to work. When he'd seen how serious she was about them, he'd clammed up. Still, it had bothered her.

Bella never said anything about my pants, she reminded herself. She just—accepts me.

"Alice?"

Alice looked up to see Carlisle staring at her intently and it occurred to her that she'd been silent for too long. "I'm in love—with Bella."

The words dropped into the room, falling from her lips one after the other. They started out small, like puffs of hot breath steaming the cold winter air, and then, like those breaths, grew larger. They grew until they took on their own weight and plopped to the ground in front of her. All five of them, bricks that she expelled from her body, indenting the plush cream carpet that Carlisle had had installed after Bella's party because he liked the feel of softness beneath his feet and—well, because they weren't likely to spill anything there.

Alice watched her parents from beneath her eyelashes as she imagined her words sitting on the ground. She wondered what they would look like if she saw them—would they be red? Would they be dripping and runny? Would they stain the ground? What would they be made of—wood? Breath? Pieces of Alice? Would they be large chunks of her body, torn from her lungs the way her air had been when she had been bitten at the institution by her vampire friend?

"Please say something," she whispered as she imagined her words. The plea felt heavy, though she felt lighter, much mores than she'd anticipated. If the words really had existed in tangible form, then she now believed that they would've been made of her. How else would she manage to feel so much relief at their existence in the open, at their expulsion from her skin and sweat and mind when she spoke them?

Esme stood up and padded over so softly that Alice almost didn't hear her until her mother put her arms around her foster daughter's shoulders. Shoulders shaking, Alice held her breath while Esme pressed soft kisses onto her foster daughter's temple and hair. Her arms squeezed Alice's shoulders tight until another set of arms joined them. On Alice's opposite cheek, Carlisle pressed a kiss of equally feather-like weight and, for a long moment, she stood between her foster parents in something of a sandwich-like arrangement. It made her feel like a child again, the kind she'd longed to be—loved and held tight by her parents as they kissed her tears and murmured cares in her ear. The kind whose parents didn't fear them, but nodded and pushed those who could harm their children out of the way.

"It's okay," Esme whispered. Her arms tightened around Alice's shoulders. Carlisle pressed another kiss to Alice's cheek and stepped back. "It's perfectly okay."

Alice felt tears slipping down her cheeks, but she didn't know if they were her own or if they belonged to her mother. She wound her arms around Esme's waist and squeezed with all her might while Alice cried and Esme stroked her daughter's hair.

After they had stood that way for a few minutes, Alice finally relaxed her hold and stepped back. They laughed a bit at the tears on each other's faces as they wiped their cheeks and rubbed the wet from their eyes.

"You've told Jasper already?" Carlisle asked, his melodic voice breaking the quiet.

Alice nodded. "Yes, and she's told Edward. Bella has."

He returned the nod, sticking his hands in his pockets as his smile softened his face. "I'm very happy for the two of you. It seems like you know what you want and that you're going for it."

Blushing, Alice ducked her head, twining her fingers again. "Thank you, Carlisle."

"Has Bella told her family?" Esme asked, brushing her hands over her skirt.

"She will be tonight. To be fair, I'm not sure how they're going to take it. Charlie seems to like me well enough, but—"

"Small town folk aren't known for being particularly accepting," Carlisle said with a grimace. A small hush fell over the room as they ruminated over this. Carlisle touched the back of his head and then put his hands back in his pockets. "I've known Charlie for a good while, though. He's a fantastic policeman and an equally fantastic father. I think he'd understand. If I know him, then he's only going to want the best for his daughter."

Alice smiled a little, but she couldn't feel the action in her cheeks the way she did when smiles came easily. Carlisle laughed a little bit and took a few steps forward so that she could see the light in his golden eyes.

"What I mean to say is that, if he likes you, Alice, then I don't think you have anything to be worried about."


	5. Chapter 5

She waited outside Bella's house the following morning, idling in the yellow car and watching the midmorning sun play off the windows along the sides of the house. It didn't take long for her lover to emerge, bundled to her ears in a thick brown coat and fuzzy blue mittens with matching ear protectors.

"So?" Alice asked the moment Bella slipped into the seat beside her.

Bella blinked at her before squeezing her eyes shut and laughing. "Oh, right. Sorry, I forgot what you were asking for a second. He, um…I don't think he believes me, to be honest. He kept saying, "But what about Edward?" I mean, that seems really stupid right now, considering how much my dad hated him, but…" She shook her head and looked at her hands where they sat in her lap.

Alice gave her a small half-smile that Bella didn't see. "Well, how does he feel about the fact that I'm—you know."

Bella shrugged and Alice could feel her heart clenching. "He's not bothered by it. I mean, he likes you. It's like I said, though. I don't think he believes me."

As they spoke, Alice saw the tremor in her lover's shoulders. It was only a slight shaking, but it seemed to consume Bella's whole body the longer Alice stared. Without further ado, she caught the glimmer of a tear slip from between her lover's eyelashes and drip down the soft curve of her cheek. "Oh, Bella-Bee," Alice whispered and wrapped her arms around Bella's shoulders.

Hiccuping sobs filled the car as Alice tried to cradle her lover without making the position any more awkward for either of them over the console. She ran her cold fingertips across Bella's scalp and brushed out Bella's hair with her soft-rounded nails until the sobs quieted and the easy sound of their breathing replaced it.

"I just wish he'd believe me, you know? I wish he'd understand. I mean, I'm not sure who else I could tell. I cold try my mom, but I think this is something that would be a bit beyond her."

Alice nodded into Bella's hair, smoothing a stray lock between her fingers. Her lover had often complained in the past about how little she enjoyed beauty products and getting all gussied up, but Alice had always known that Bella didn't ever have much to change to become glamorous. Her hair already ran down her shoulders in shiny cascades, her skin was already clear, and her features were already shapely. She just didn't do anything with what she had, and even though Alice was loathe to admit it, part of her liked seeing Bella without the makeup on, the way things were now—minus the tears. The thought brought her back to the present.

"Do you think you want to tell Jacob still?" she asked. "I mean, you know how he reacted when you and Edward were together."

Bella sighed and pushed her head harder against Alice's shoulder. "I think it'll just disappoint him either way. With Edward, it was a pissing contest. With you, he'll just have no chance and he'll realize this." She sat up and Alice saw a small, sardonic smile speared over her face. "He thinks I'm good for him. He thinks being with me will solve all of his problems, and that because we've been together as friends for such a long time, we're meant to be."

"But that's not the case, is it," Alice whispered, studying Bella's expression as she connected the dots.

Bella shook her head. "It's not the case at all. I'm not good for him. I love him, but like a brother. I don't think he ever got that. I don't think dad ever did, either." She shrugged. "Maybe that's why he was so adamant to say that he thinks this is a phase."

Alice's eyes widened. "He said that?"

Bella nodded, crossing her arms and sinking low in her chair. Alice glanced at the house, resting her arm across the steering wheel and leaning her whole body forward so that she could examine the windows without craning her neck. "It's amazing what parents will say when they don't want to hear what you're telling them. I mean, who was it who said, "Most parents will do anything for their children, except let them be themselves"?"

Alice shook her head. "I have no idea."

"Well, that's kind of how this is. I mean, I knew he was old fashioned when I walked into this, but I didn't know just how much."

A few seconds passed and then Alice put her hand on Bella's knee. Their eyes met. "It could just be that he's worried about what's going to happen next. I mean, things were super rocky with Edward. I'm not saying they'll be that way with me, but you never know." She could hear the uncertainty in her own voice.

Smiling a bit, Bella covered Alice's hand with her own and Alice couldn't help taking it, enjoying the feeling of the fuzz on Bella's glove under her fingers. "Edward was very different. He was afraid of me—afraid of me breaking, of me exerting myself, of me doing anything without him." She paused, considering. "Jacob's that way, too, sometimes, now that I think about it. I'm not sure if it's a guy thing, or a dominance thing, or what. That's not how you are, though. You worry, but you're not overbearing about it."

Sitting up, Alice reached for her seatbelt. "Does that mean you still want to tell Jacob?"

Bella nodded. "I'm not asking him to like it and I'm not asking him to be happy about it, but it's my choice. He's just going to have to understand what his role in my life is. Start the car."

Alice did. They rolled down the street in muted quiet, the car blocking out the shushing winds and the belting traffic noises. Every so often, Alice would glance over at her lover and wish, selfishly, to know what Bella was thinking, if only because she didn't know what to. Just as what was happening felt right, it also felt completely out of her hands and she had to breathe deeply in order to give herself even a false sense of control amidst what the universe had been doing.


	6. Chapter 6

Alice wrinkled her nose when they arrived at Jake's house. She and her siblings had, for the most part, avoided this part of town out of necessity. With the treaty in place, she knew she would be just as welcome as the Black Plague in these parts. For all she knew, they considered her kind to be the Plague. Clenching her jaw, Alice pulled into the driveway beside Jake's house. The boy himself appeared not a few seconds later and Alice threw the car into park before she lost her nerve.

Jake wore a stormy expression, his hands balled into fists and his ridiculous muscle shirt hugging his body in, admittedly, all the right places. Once, Alice might've felt intimidated.

That had been years ago.

Now, she just wanted to roll her eyes. Looking at Bella, she found her lover staring at Jake the way Alice had. The girl's jaw worked as she chewed her bottom lip, but the set of her brows—low over her eyes—told Alice that the girl was pretty much ready. She hadn't changed her mind and they wouldn't be going back.

Jake made it halfway to the car when Bella hopped out, but Alice didn't need to follow to hear what was begin said.

"Hey," Bella called.

Jake stopped walking, but his eyes were on Alice, boring their way into the back of her head as if they could find whatever crazy notion had dragged a vampire all the way out onto the res. "What's this bloodsucker doing here?" he asked, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. Alice studied the tension in the shapeshifter's bare arms and wondered how much of a struggle it was for him to hold back.

"Jake, I wanted to talk to you," Bella said, plowing on with the conversation. Although Alice still held Jake's eyes, meeting his challenge the way few others had, she could see Bella's fingers working her jacket sleeves over her hands.

"First answer my question," Jake said, turning from Alice for the first time since arriving outside. Her hands gripped the wheel as she watched him walk around the car and close the distance between himself and Bella. "What—is this bloodsucker—doing here?"

Alice held her breath. She felt as if she was watching a movie and all she wanted to do was jump into the middle of things, protecting Bella and pushing Jake back so a safer distance from the both of them. This wasn't her burden, though. As much as she wanted to, she knew this wasn't a fight she could get involved in and she would just have to wait it out. Her heart jumped into her throat when she saw Bella straighten, her arms falling to her sides and her chin rising as she met Jake's glare straight-on.

"This bloodsucker? First of all, this bloodsucker has a name. It's Alice."

In the car, Alice blushed.

"Second of all, you've already met her, so you should have the courtesy and respect to call her by her name because she'd do the same for you."

Alice's blush deepened.

"Third of all…she's here to support me."

Jake turned from one face to the other before settling on Bella again. "Support you?"

Bella nodded slowly, but her face had softened and Alice knew she wasn't being cruel or sarcastic. If anything, she was trying to gently lead her friend to the conclusion. "I need to talk to you. It's something about me."

Alice just heard Jake scoff and mutter, "Isn't it always?" indignation rose up in her chest, but when she saw Bella nod and stick her hands in her jacket pockets, the feeling sank away into Alice's chest.

"Seems that way, doesn't it?" Bella said. The surprise Alice felt mirrored itself on Jake's face and for a second, she realized it made them something like kin.

Jake shrugged, momentarily taken off his guard. "So, what is it?"

"Think about it. Think long and hard about who's here and who's not. You're a smart boy, Jake. I know you can figure this out easily."

Again, Alice found herself admiring Bella's sympathy, her patience. The words could've been said with so much sarcasm—Alice would've said them with sarcasm, if she'd been in Bella's place—but she spoke like a counselor to a self-deprecating child.

Jake glanced back at the car, his frown deepening, but just as he did, he turned back to Bella again, his jaw dropping. "Where's Edward?"

Bella gave him a small smile. "He's not here."

"Why not? Why did you bring Alice here instead of him?"

Taking her hands from her pockets, Bella stepped forward. Alice held her breath as she watched the emotions play across Bella's face and the confusion settle into the creases of Jake's. "Because we broke up," she said. For a moment, Jake's face opened as if a whole new day had dawned. Alice felt her heart clench, a reaction that surprised her, but one she let herself feel for him. "We broke up because I'm not in love with him. I'm in love with Alice."

Alice's breath caught in her chest as she watched their expressions. Her hands tightened and loosened on the the steering wheel while Bella kept her face neutral, but not unkind. Jake didn't seem to know what he wanted to feel—the joyous expression gradually dropped while she spoke and his brow sank lower over his eyes. The rest of his body remained still, as if he'd momentarily forgotten about it.

"You're—" he whispered.

"In love," Bella said.

He nodded once. "With—"

"Alice." She returned the nod and put her hands back into her pockets.

He shook his head, turning his attention away from Bella and Alice and the car to stare at the woods behind his house. The tension in his shoulders dropped until she wouldn't have known, just by looking at him, that he'd gotten what seemed to be universe-inverting news. If she hadn't been following the conversation, she would've said he was just looking at something in the distance.

He shook his head a second time as he turned back to them. "When did this happen? You were so—obsessed over Edward, I thought?"

Bella nodded at the ground. "You're right. I was obsessed over him. I think that's what occurred to me, though. I wasn't really in love with him. I mean, he mattered, obviously, because when he left, it broke my heart." She pursed her lips.

"And?" Jake asked, a tone of impatience to his voice.

"And it really wasn't ever him, was it? It was the person waiting in the shadows, helping me, but not leading me around like a pet on a leash." She looked up and met Alice's eyes. Alice gave her a small smile and found it mirrored on her lover's face.

"Obsession isn't love," Bella said, still holding Alice's gaze. "Trying to help someone become a better person and being there for them is what makes love possible. Putting aside yourself for the people you care about—that's what it is." She turned back to Jake and Alice caught a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"That's what I don't think Edward understood and it's certainly not something I knew when I was with him."

Alice watched her reach out and slide her hand into Jake's. She watched his jaw harden and his back straighten.

"It's what I'm going to be better at now," Bella whispered.


	7. Chapter 7

After a few minutes of trying to figure out how he felt about everything, Jake let them inside. Alice scrunched her nose when she crossed the threshold, an expression she hid behind her hand as best she could so that she wouldn't insult Bella. Part of her wondered if she was supposed to be worried about insulting Jake, too, but when he didn't even offer her a chair at the kitchen table, she put that concern aside. Instead, she took in her surroundings while he offered Bella drinks and food that he probably didn't have very much of, if the threadbare furnishings and decorations were any indication.

Everything about the place was rustic and run-down. Alice would've imagined that a particularly spoiled three-year-old had been living in the house with the way the place had been used and abused within an inch of its life. The smell, too. She could hardly stand it. Opening her mouth a tad, she tried not to taste the air as it slithered over her tongue. Breathing wasn't a necessity, no, but she knew how it might look if she didn't. Given her heart didn't send a pulse through her body to alert anyone of her impossible animation, she figured it was the least she could do to keep the humans—or, human and shapeshifter—comfortable.

"Do you want anything?"

Alice started and turned to find Bella staring at her. Jake, who had half of his body in the fridge, froze, a gesture so subtle that Bella would've missed it if she'd been looking at him. Alice shook her head.

"No, thank you. I'm fine."

From the fridge, Jake snorted and pulled out a carton of orange juice, taking a swig straight from the bottle and then setting it on the table. "No, I don't imagine you eat anything, do you?" he asked.

Alice stuck her hands in her pockets, but she didn't stop staring him down for even a second. "Not human food, no."

He nodded and broke the gaze, turning instead to his hands. A long pause filled the air and Alice felt a blush creeping over her cheeks.

Bella shifted, a movement that broke the silence in the room. "Do you want to sit down?" she asked Alice.

The vampire almost smiled when she caught Jake's cheeks turning red. Part of her wondered if that was Bella's way of calling him out on his rudeness, but the other, larger part of her knew that this was just Bella being polite. She'd never been anything but to Alice. "I'm fine, thank you," she repeated.

Another pause filled the room, but lasted for an even shorter time when Jake slapped his hands against the table. "So what do we do now?" he asked. "Why are you here? Just to tell me that you weren't going to be dating me anytime soon?"

The indignation Alice had felt towards him earlier rose up in her chest and she took a huge step forward. "This isn't all about you, you know," she snapped. Jake blinked and looked up at her with wide eyes, as if he was finally seeing the vampire standing in front of his face.

"Alice—" Bella whispered, but Alice held up her hand.

"No, Bella. This is ridiculous. None of this is about him and that's what he's turning it into," she said, never moving her eyes from Jake's head. When he didn't pick his head up, she said, "Look at me."

With visible reluctance, Jake sat back and stared at her, a careful, almost controlled look of boredom on his face. Something about it—possibly his apparent indifference and disregard for his crush's safety, she couldn't tell which—set her off and she jabbed a finger at his chest.

"I know you don't like me or my kind. I know you'd rather see Bella dead than with the likes of us." When his face opened up, Alice shook her head. "Don't, for one second, think I don't know what you're thinking. Believe me, I've lived with people who've wanted me dead long before I was ever a vampire. Being clairvoyant in the early 1900s does that to a person. But this _isn't_ the 1900s. This isn't a time where it's acceptable to just hate on everyone for no reason. You don't have to like me, but you do have to respect what I'm doing."

Jake's jaw snapped shut and he leaned forward, resting his fists on the table with a gleam in his eye that she could've sworn glinted green when the light coming through the kitchen window hit it just right. "Oh yeah? And what _exactly _would that be?" he whispered.

Alice bristled at the challenge in his voice, only to jump when she felt something touch her hand. Whipping her head around, she found Bella watching her with tenderness in her eyes. It was her hand that was touching Alice's, and the vampire could feel her lover's soft fingers running across her own. The touch soothed Alice in a way that the vampire had only thought possible around Jasper, and this realization startled her almost as much as her earlier declarations of love for the human had.

"It's okay," Bella whispered, her fingers gripping Alice's harder. "It's going to be okay. He's not going to know yet. You don't have to be angry with him."

"What don't I know?" Jake asked, reminding Alice that he was there. He stared between them, but the sarcastic and bitter tones to his voice had disappeared. Instead of anger and saccharine hospitality, alarm and confusion marred the angles of his face.

Bella turned to Alice and clenched her jaw. Her eyes spoke of worries and struggles that Alice wasn't entirely unfamiliar with, but the burden of the news that they were carrying could be seen so deeply within the human's soul that it seemed to be a wonder that Jake couldn't read it there. Bella's throat expanded as she swallowed and sat back, but Alice could feel Jake's tension rising, his concern and confusion mounting.

"What don't I know?" he asked again, stress in his voice.

Alice put a hand to her forehead and heaved a great sigh. "There's a war coming," she whispered.


	8. Chapter 8

"A _war_?!" Jake screamed and jumped to his feet. His chair went careening back, falling to the floor with a crash. "What kind of war?" he demanded.

"A war for Bella's life," Alice said, stepping forward so that she stood more in between him and Bella. "An army of vampires, mostly newborns, is being developed just outside Seattle. I don't know much about it outside of that, but I do know that we're keeping our eyes on the situation and it doesn't seem to be going away."

While Alice talked, Jake ran his hand over his jaw. The gesture momentarily distorted his mouth, but he turned around and began pacing towards the other end of the kitchen before Alice could say anything more. She shared a quick glance with Bella, whose eyes had gone wide and who also watched Jake with what Alice believed was increasing tension. The squeak of his shoes against the linoleum called their attention back to him. He glared at Bella.

"When the hell were you going to tell me about this?" he snapped, crossing back to the table in two long strides with his hands balled into fists at his sides.

Alice leapt in front of him, putting one hand out as if to touch his chest and hold him back. Jake stopped just in time and the vampire could almost feel her skin being scalded by the amount of heat coming off of his body. "Don't blame Bella for this. It's not her fault. We haven't told her much, either."

"Then why are you telling me if you haven't even told her?"

Alice scoffed and dropped her hand. "Are you serious? You care about her, too, right? Or was all that stuff just a bunch of lies because you don't have a girlfriend yet?"

Behind her, Alice heard Bella gasp. For a second, Jake's face fell. It hardened up again quickly, as if he'd never been surprised, the long crease between his brows deepening. He leaned over Alice and from the bottom of her peripheral vision, she could see his hand come up, pointing a threatening finger at Alice's chest.

"Don't—you dare—tell me I don't care about Bella," he whispered. They stood so close that Alice could smell the spearmint toothpaste on his breath, see the veins of brown color in his irises. She set her jaw and kept her back ramrod straight, not allowing herself to be intimidated by the likes of a shapeshifter.

"I wouldn't presume to believe it if you weren't acting like such a child," she said, her voice just as quiet. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but she hurried on. "I'm telling you because we're not going to be enough to tackle this on our own. All we know is that the threat is growing. We don't know when it will be here, only that the numbers are going to be bigger than we've seen since our coven was developed."

Alice glanced behind her at Bella. The human had gotten to her feet and was watching them both with concern in her eyes, but the expression softened when Alice offered her a smile. "Neither of us wants to see her hurt. We're going to need as many allies as we can afford," she said and turned back to Jake.

The shapeshifter backed up and stuck his hands in his pockets. He fell back to the wall, leaning up against it and turning his nose to his feet, nodding as he listened.

Shrugging, Alice stuck her hands in her pockets, too. "Will you help us?" she asked.

"I might have to talk to the pack," Jake said after a second of not speaking.

"Do whatever you have to do. It would be nice if we could have as many reinforcements on our side as possible."

He shook his head. "That's not what I meant."

Frowning, Alice crossed her arms over her chest and stuck her hip out to the side. "Then what?"

He looked up, his face blank. "I meant I'd have to talk to the pack about the fact that I want to go at this alone. I'll help. Not all of them, too."

"What?" Bella snapped at the same time Alice shouted, "Excuse me?"

A long, angry silence hovered between the three of them until it encompassed the kitchen. Alice could hear Bella breathing and tried to match the human's breath with her own, so that the sounds mingled and the room felt full. Without it, and with the incredible amount of empty rooms around them, the tiny house seemed cavernous and empty, something Alice didn't particularly like about the place. She wasn't sure how such a small cottage could seem so much bigger, and more intimidating, when no one was inside of it. Now, though, that was precisely the impression she was getting.

When Jake didn't explain, Alice scoffed and started to walk out of the room.

"This is suicide," she heard Bella say. It stopped Alice in her tracks and she stared out the frosted window on the front door to the hazy world outside, the green turning brown beneath the heat of the sun.

"I don't expect you to understand, Bella," she heard Jake whisper.

"Then help me try to. Because I don't want to see my best friend get himself killed. Why wouldn't you want to have the rest of the pack help. Is it because of Alice? Is it because of the other vampires? Is it pride—"

"I don't want Sam involved," he said, his vice so loud that it made the room ring.

Confused, Alice turned back to the room. She made to cross to where the shapeshifter stood, but Bella got there first, her hand finding Jake's shoulder. The gesture warmed Alice's heart, though she wished it was her own shoulder that Bella's hand had found instead of the shapeshifter's.

"Sometimes we have to do things that we don't like because we don't have much other choice. This territory," Bella said, gesturing to the house and the world outside, "is as much Sam's as it is yours. The vampires coming here won't care about the treaty. They won't care whose side you're on or whether or not you get along with each other. The only thing they'll care about is who's standing in their way. You're going to get hurt if you come at them alone. If we have more numbers, then we'll be better."

Alice watched Jake's jaw work as he mulled this over, but when he didn't say anything after five seconds, she threw up her hands. "This isn't going to work, Bella. He obviously has some sort of problem and it's not going to go away just because you ask him to put it aside. Maybe we should just go—"

"No," Jake snapped. He glared at Alice and his shoulders made their way up to his ears, making him look like a too-big kid trying to sit in a chair made for a five-year-old.

Alice raised her eyebrows. "So do we have to ask Sam on our own?"

"No."

Bella's hand shifted to his cheek and Jake looked up at her with shining eyes. "Does that mean you'll ask him for us?"

After a long, deep breath, Jake nodded. Sighing with relief, Alice started towards him. "Thank you so much—"

"I'm not doing it for you," Jake snapped, stopping her where she stood. His eyes softened and he looked at Bella. "I'm doing it for Bells."

Momentarily nonplussed, Alice watched the human press her forehead against his and then step back. "Thank you. I mean it," she said. She moved away from him just as he reached out to touch her cheek and Alice slid her fingers into Bella's hand. Jake didn't do anything to hide the wounded look on his face. "We'll be at the Cullen house, preparing. Come along whenever you're ready," Bella said.

Alice nodded at the shapeshifter and then let the human lead them both back to the car. Before she got inside, she pressed a kiss to Bella's lips and let the human's soft warmth seep into her body. "Thank you," she whispered.

Bella raised her eyebrows. "Don't thank me yet. You're going to have to pay for not telling me what was happening in Seattle."

The jab hurt and Alice felt her heart fall as she tightened her hand around her lover's. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to worry you."

"I appreciate the concern, but next time, I'd rather not go into the conversation half-blind."

Nodding, Alice pressed a second kiss to Bella's lips. "Understood."


	9. Chapter 9

As promised, Bella and Alice spent the afternoon at the Cullen house. The human sat in the living room with Esme and Rosalie, talking about what supplies they would need to relocate Bella to a safer location and how long it would take them to get everything together. In the kitchen down the hall from them, Carlisle, Emmett, Jasper, and Edward hovered around a series of phone numbers they'd procured from a place deep in Carlisle's desk. She could hear them scrolling through the names and speaking in hushed tones at opposite corners of the room while they got in contact with the other vampire clans with whom the Cullen family had found an alliance.

Alice watched them work from the hallway, listening to them murmuring while her thoughts turned inward. She longed to go into the living room and sit with Bella, but something kept her back and she couldn't See what it was, so instead, she thought back to their earlier meeting with Jacob. The looks on his face had torn her heart into ribbons, despite how desperately she'd wanted to put hatred for him in her heart. It would've made it easier if she could hate him, but she'd seen the heartbreak he'd felt when Bella had announced that she wasn't interested in men.

Yes, he'd been rude and misogynistic in his reaction. That couldn't be forgiven until he realized his error and apologized. She knew, however, that the words had been a defense mechanism. While she couldn't condone his poor choice of language and his unwillingness to accept the facts that were being laid bare before him, she could understand the hurt. She just couldn't ever imagine herself being so rude in her delivery of her disapproval.

The heat from her anger earlier in the day flared up again and she clenched her jaw to swallow it back. Just as she did, she heard Carlisle sign and put down the phone. Glancing into the kitchen, she saw him rub his eyes, then wipe his hands across his face.

"They're not coming," he whispered to the other boys. Jasper, Emmett, and Edward had all hung up their phones and either put them back into their pockets or slid them onto the onyx countertop. "The Denali coven doesn't want to get involved."

"Why?" Edward whispered.

"Because they're afraid and they don't think it will end well. If there's a war coming, they think the casualties will be enormous."

Alice rounded the corner until she stood in the kitchen with the other men. "They're right, though. If there's a war, then there's going to be some sort of bloodshed. What I'm worried about is what the Volturi are going to say. Do we know if they're aware of the situation? Are we going to get in more trouble?"

Even though all the eyes in the room were on her, as if they couldn't believe her intrusion, she stared at Carlisle, who nodded and covered his mouth with his hand.

"I can't say. Have you been keeping tabs on them at all?"

For a second, Alice grew red from the collar of her shirt to the top of her head. Emmett snorted at the sight of her coloring, but she rolled her eyes at him and then turned inward again.

Using her Sight, she projected her mind to Volterra, into the home and counsel of the Volturi. She could See them sitting around, maps spread on a long oak table between them, lit only by candlelight. They had anger in their eyes and tension in their faces. Aro spoke to the rest of the room, but though she couldn't hear what he was saying, she could read his lips and she saw "Seattle" fall from them twice. Slipping backwards, she fell into the kitchen again to find Jasper at her side, holding her arm the way he used to always do whenever she had a vision.

Gape-jawed, she stared at him, surprised. He had concern in his eyes, a concern that fluttered into his fingers—his cool, gentle, kind fingers that gripped her with the same cool tenderness that her hands used to brush his—but didn't warm her skin the way Bella's did. She wondered, briefly, if Bella would learn to catch Alice the way Jasper had done for so many years. She wondered if things would last that long.

As soon as the thought entered her head, she hoped they would. She hoped, more than anything, that she and Bella would last.

Calm rushed through her as Jasper's brows lifted and she gave him a grateful smile.

"Thank you," she said and turned back to the rest of the group. "They're aware. They have maps and I think they're interested in what's happening, but I'm not sure if they know about Bella's involvement, or if they're simply worried about what would happen with so many newborn vampires being in one area. I'll keep my eye on it, though."

Carlisle nodded and moved away from the table to press a hard kiss on Alice's forehead. "Thank you. That means a lot. If things are speeding up as quickly as I expect they are, then they'll be here shortly and we're going to have to meet them—both he newborns and the Volturi—in a matter of hours." He turned back to the rest of the room. "Get ready."

With complacent nods, the other men left the room and passed down to the other end of the hall, turning on lights and shuffling through closets. When Alice made to follow them, Jasper's hand held her back.

"Are you all right?" he asked in a low, kind voice. The concern was back in his eyes and his mouth was set in a firm line.

A flutter rose in Alice's chest at the sight of him, but the flutter wasn't the same butterflies she thought it was back when they were in love. It was the feeling of her heart being touched by his courtesy. She cradled his cheek in her hand, running her thumb along its angles before dropping her hand again. "I'm fine. Thank you for helping me," she said.

He gave her one long nod and then turned down the hall, his hand patting her shoulder. As he walked, she wondered how much of that concern for her was really hiding behind his eyes. She wondered how heartbroken she'd left him, or if he was feeling the impact at all.

He must be, she told herself. There's no way he isn't feeling something. Space is what we both need right now. We just need space from each other and helping keep Bella out of harm's way is the best possible solution for this.

Lifting her chin higher, she nodded and went into the living room to find Carlisle telling Esme and the others about the plan. When Bella caught her eye, she stood up and moved to stand by Alice. The movement pulled Carlisle's eye towards his clairvoyant daughter and he smiled at the two of them.

"Alice, we'd like to keep you and Bella together when we take her where she needs to go. With your Sight, she's going to be best served having you around to keep an eye on the battle and to stop anyone who tries to attack her."

Alice nodded and put her arm around Bella's waist. "I won't let anyone down."

Esme smiled. "We know." She nodded to Rosalie. "We should get ready."

"Of course," Rosalie said, but as soon as everyone stood up, she said, "Can I just speak to Bella first?"

A quick pause settled over the room. Alice looked from her sister to her lover and back, but only Rosalie had intention in her eyes. Carlisle shrugged and Esme led him from the room with a knowing look at her two daughters.

"Of course," Bella said, slipping from Alice's grip. Alice caught her fingers by their tips just as their hands were parting and Bella gasped.

"Don't be long," Alice whispered with a wink.

Smiling at her and shaking her head, Bella followed Rosalie onto the back porch.

Alice had every intention of walking away entirely. She slipped into the hall and had almost reached the kitchen, her thoughts turning to her packing, but as soon as she heard their voices collecting on the afternoon air, she stopped. Feeling a mixture of curious and horrible for eavesdropping, Alice snuck back to the other end of the hallway and leaned against the wall so that she might hear their conversation.


	10. Chapter 10

Thankfully, as Bella walked onto the porch, she left the door open and the sounds of their conversation drifted back to Alice. Rosalie didn't waste any time in saying, "I think you're making the wrong choice."

Alice's heart froze in her chest and she listened harder. For a while, no one said anything and she took that to mean that Bella was in as much shock at hearing this as Alice was.

"I'm sorry?" Bell whispered.

"I know you had us all vote on whether or not we think you should become a vampire, and I know we already cast our votes and you basically have your decision all mapped out and ready to go. I still don't think you should do this."

Another pause filled the air. Alice forgot to breathe again until she heard Bella speak, only to gasp at the words that came out of her mouth.

"You don't like me, do you?" Bella asked.

Rosalie laughed. It wasn't a loud sound, but it was clear and distinct enough that Alice could identify it as a separate sound from a scoff. "I don't hate you. I don't like you all that much, but that's mostly because you're getting yourself involved with things that you don't understand."

"Well, maybe if you explained them to me—"

"We've tried, Bella," Rosalie snapped, making Alice jump a little bit. "We've tried to. We've tried to show you. What, you think that your almost-death by James was a joke? You think that we enjoy watching our family almost get torn apart time and again is fun for us? I mean, you put Jasper in danger, let alone yourself. Two times, you've had to get involved to the point where you could see just how perilous things are for us. Isn't that enough of a deterrent? We're not going to be like anyone else and we're going to have to get out of here again once we graduate from high school."

The silence grated on Alice. She wanted more than anything to rush out to Bella's aid, to admonish her foster sister for yelling at her lover, but doing that would give away her hiding place and she was loathe to let them know that she'd been listening. Especially Rosalie. She didn't want Rose getting upset about something like this when she was clearly already upset enough.

"So what's your deal?" Bella asked, most of the niceties gone from her voice. There was something hard and matter-of-fact in place of what would've otherwise sounded like a sympathetic smile on her tone. "Why did you want to talk to me?"

Alice heard Rosalie sigh and from the sounds of exasperation, she could almost picture her foster sister waving one hand, as if to brush the whole topic away. "I wanted to remind you of what you were getting yourself into, but I can see that it's clearly not going to work."

She took a pause and Alice pursed her lips, rolling over the conversation in her mind until Rosalie spoke again. "I didnt choose this life, as you know. I was killed because of my fiancée. He tried to kill me one night, when he and his friends were drunk. It's not the most glamorous way to go, but what way is? All I'm saying is that, if I could, I would go back. I'd forego dating the man I'd chosen to wed and I'd find someone else, someone with half the money and twice the care in his heart. I'd do it all just to have the life I'd envisioned for myself. Anything, as long as I didn't end up in this one."

Stillness that could rival the dead marked the end of Rosalie's speech. When no one said anything else, Alice turned to look into the room. Just as she made to turn, Rosalie stalked by, her head held high and her shoulders pushed back, an angry, upset glint in her eye. Alice leapt out of the way just as her sister nearly barreled into her. Both of them started at the sight of the other.

"Alice!" Rosalie cried out, and then laughed, pushing the hair on her shoulders back with one hand. "What are you doing here?"

Gape-jawed, Alice swallowed and found her voice. "I—was just looking for Bella. We have to pack still," she said, pretending to peer around the side of the wall as if she was just seeing now if her lover happened to be in there.

Rosalie rolled her eyes and gestured to the porch doors. "She should be over there. It's a nice night. If you get a chance, you should enjoy it a bit before we leave," she said.

Raising her eyebrows, Alice thanked her foster sister and then watched Rosalie walk down the hall towards the bedroom she shared with Emmett. When the taller vampire had gone, Alice took a deep breath, shook her head, and went into the living room.

Sure enough, Bella still stood out on the porch, her arms dangling over the railing. Trying not to fidget, Alice crept up behind her and slipped her arms around Bella's waist. The human jumped a bit, then laughed when she saw who it was. She leaned her head back against Alice's shoulder so that, when Alice pressed her pelvis to the curve of Bella's bum, they formed one long line down the middle.

"I overheard you having a talk with Rosalie," she whispered into Bella's ear. When Bella went to lift her head, Alice shook hers and Bella rested once again, although Alice could feel the muscles in her lover's arms and shoulders stiffen.

"What did you hear?" Bella asked.

"That Rosalie was trying to deter you from becoming like us—again."

"It's not her decision to make."

Alice nodded and pressed her lips to Bella's temple. "Have you changed your mind at all?"

The ghost of a smile slipped across Bella's lips and she turned just enough so that their mouths whispered over one another. "If I had, you would know," she promised.

Alice took a deep breath as they kissed. She could smell the gardenias that bloomed along the sides of the house, as well as the rich, heady scent of Bella's blood running under her nose. Rosalie had been right—the night air drifted in warm bursts across her skin and sent Bella shivering so that the human pressed closer to Alice, as if there was some kind of warmth to be found in the vampire's arms.

"I should be the one snuggling up to you," Alice joked and Bella laughed, the sound raining around them the way the light spring showers used to do in the South.

"Someday soon," Bella said.

Running a hand down her lover's back, Alice pressed her lips to Bella's ear. "Can I be the one to turn you?" she asked.

Bella lifted her head, her eyes shining. "Of course," she said, and then her eyes went hard, even though the smile on her face said she was joking. "Do we need to get married first?"

Alice felt something in her chest hitch and the images of a beautiful, flower-strewn wedding flashed to mind, filled with lace and sheer veils and glittering lights. "Can we?" she asked, her voice reedy.

As if in reply, Bella cupped the back of Alice's head and pressed their lips together, harder than she'd ever done before.


	11. Chapter 11

Alice stuffed the last of her overnight clothing into a duffle bag just as Bella turned off her phone and wandered back into the room, running one hand through her hair.

"Was that Charlie?" Alice asked.

Bella nodded. "He's kind of miffed about the whole "going camping in the middle of the week" thing, but I told him that we were in science class together and that this was something of a requirement for the project we were working on."

Laughing, Alice zipped up her bag and took a seat on the bed beside it. "I'm sure that went over well."

Her lover shook her head and settled down beside Alice, wrapping her arms around the vampire's waist and resting her head against the vampire's shoulder. "He thought I was lying to him. I just hope he doesn't confirm it with the teacher."

Alice froze. Her mind raced through the possibilities of whether Charlie would do something like that. As a cop, she wouldn't put it past him to have that kind of leaning power, something he would be able to use at any time and for any reasons. She was also pretty sure one or two of the other town-run places—like the school—would be more than happy to oblige him if he asked for a favor. "He wouldn't, would he?" she asked, thinking of their teacher answering the phone and scratching her head as she tried to decide how best to break the bad news to Chief Swan.

"If he does, Esme's going to be the one to receive the call."

For a second, Alice couldn't believe what she was hearing. Once it'd sunk in, though, she laughed and pressed her cheek to the top of Bella's head. "Won't that be a shock? My poor mother." She sighed.

They sat quietly for a while, looking around Alice's room that she'd divided with Jasper at one point, before the boy had taken to rooming with Edward after Alice's proclamation of love for the human girl. She knew they were going to be back here soon enough, but she couldn't help running her eyes over everything. The closet doors sat in front of them and had been flung open in her haste to get ready. Scarves dripped from the hangers and door handles. Coats and pants and shirts of every cut and color stood in straight, tight rows above equally well-ordered shoes of every size and variety.

To the left of the bed, a vanity, similar to the one Rosalie had in her room, occupied almost an entire wall, with its long oval mirror wrapped in sparkling white lights and fake vines running along the legs. Behind them, cream curtains closed them off to the floor-to-ceiling windows that let them peek out at the dreary outside world. The whole room could've been easily made to look like a tomb or a cave with so much heavy material blocking out the sunlight, but Alice had stationed a tall, standing lamp with a soft bulb at both ends of the window and these cast the entire space in a golden glow, making it appear to be almost perpetually bedtime.

As lovely as the room was, and as spacious and clean as she'd been able to keep it, Alice closed her eyes to the sights and pressed her cheek to Bella's hair instead. The sight of the room sometimes gave her a sense of dreariness, as if the world around her had grown old and tired and she was bored with it. After so many years of collecting and dressing and redressing her spaces, she longed to get rid of what she had and have a room of just open crevices, one that echoed and rang with her footsteps.

_A cluttered space is a cluttered mind,_ Esme had once told her when Alice had come back from one of her shopping sprees.

She'd laughed then. It had been so easy and she loved—more than anything—dressing up and being trendy. She loved designing and she wanted a space where she could do this. Until she realized how many times she passed the same sweaters when she roamed through her closet. Until she slung the same old purses over her shoulders. Until she wanted to open her bedroom door and see a different space, one as barren and blank as a canvas onto which she could paint anything she wanted, and then erase it once again. Sometimes, she just didn't have the space or clothes to be or live or act the way she wanted for the day.

"You're so quiet."

Bella's voice slipped through Alice's thoughts and she blinked to find her lover's hand wrapping around her own cold fingers. She smiled at the touch, wondering if there was anything in the world that was as soft and tender as the inside of Bella's palm.

"What are you thinking about?" Bella asked.

Taking a deep breath, Alice opened her eyes, lifted her head, and glanced around the room. She considered lying and saying "You," as if that would solve all the problems in the world and allow her to continue mulling in silence on the things that often weighed most heavily on her mind. When she caught Bella's eyes, though, she saw the love there. She saw the depth of her lover's concerns, of her genuine curiosity.

_Lying will not make the bed any warmer._

"I'm thinking about changing this space," she whispered. When Bella frowned, Alice sat up a little straighter and pointed to the closet before letting her hand fall back to her lap. "I know we should probably be more worried about keeping you alive and not thinking about how to change things after this is all done, but it's been on my mind. I want a new space. I want to recreate the one I'm in. I want something…more open. The modern wood and white walls and glass is all fine, but I want to see more of it, you know?"

Bella nodded and then her lip quirked. "Are you having a midlife crisis?" she asked, her laughter barely concealed.

Alice stared at her, watching as her lover giggled and wondering how lightly she ought to take this.

"I'm kidding. I'm sorry, you opened yourself up to that," Bella whispered, kissing a small trail down the side of Alice's jaw.

Alice wrapped her arms around her lover and pulled her close, leaning as far into the kisses as she dared without hurting her human. "That's all right. It was a cute joke."

Bella placed one more kiss on Alice's cheek and then stood up, rubbing her thumb over the spot. "If you'd like to recreate your space, you should do that. But first, we need to stop these vampires."

With a laugh, Alice jumped to her feet and shook her head. "No, first we need to get you somewhere safe," she said. She stuck her hands into Bella's back pants pockets, leaning forward to press a last, lingering kiss on her lover's lips, and then gave the human's bum a light swat. "Let's go," she said, leading the way from the room as Bella's jaw dropped in mock outrage.


	12. Chapter 12

Alice and Bella drove in the car with Emmett and Rosalie, while Jasper and Edward rode ahead of them in Esme and Carlisle's car. No one said a word the entire time—the radio stayed off and the only sounds that permeated the Jeep were those of the world whistling around them. The sky remained a long, dark gray sheet and Alice Looked forward into the future to try to see if there was any rain in their path, but after a few failed attempts that ended in flickering visions, she decided to give it a rest. Apparently, Mother Nature wasn't something you could try to predict.

She heard Bella gasp and looked out the window around her lover's shoulder. There, just beyond them and growing ever closer, stood the twin peaks of snow-capped mountains, their bottoms colored purple and deepest green with vegetation and frostbite. Bella turned and caught Alice's eye. The fear that the vampire saw there could've taken the breath from her body, if she'd had any left. Reaching over the space between them, Alice took her lover's hand and pressed a kiss to the back of Bella's knuckles.

"We're almost there," she whispered, not knowing if this was going to come as a comfort or a threat. In the front seat, she saw Rosalie's head tilt towards them, her foster sister's dark eyes flicking over to her husband, whose head also tilted, but neither of them said a word.

They jostled the rest of the way there over hidden rocks and muddy pathways. At long last, the road stopped veering so far upright and flattened out into a small enclosure. A large boulder sat just off-center of the tiny, verdant field they found themselves in, the grass here as deeply green as the needles on the pines surrounding it, and a distant part of Alice wondered if the whole place had been contained in a sort of time freeze that kept the oncoming winter chill away.

As soon as they parked, Alice and Bella hopped out of the car and hurried over to where Esme and Carlisle stood with their hands in their pockets and their eyes on the trees around them.

"Is this where they promised to meet us?"Alice called, trying not to scan the woods herself. If they were hiding, she would be loathe to give them any impressions that they were scaring her off.

Carlisle nodded, pulling his gaze reluctantly back to his family. "This is where the army is going to meet us. Their path leads directly here, if I tracked them correctly, although how long it will take them now is anyone's guess," he said, but looked pointedly at Alice.

The clairvoyant nodded and turned inward. Seeing into the future, she focused on the army, on Seattle, and found herself being flung forward until she could see the leading vampire as though he was standing right in front of her. The boy had a neat haircut and blood-red eyes, his mouth set in a firm grimace. He and the others had left Seattle and were somehow underwater, their clothes snagging on the current as they pushed forward. Their movements were slow and their outlines were hazy, but they stretched as far back as she could see and they were determined in their walk.

She fell out of the vision almost the same way she fell into it, only instead of Jasper's arm at her side, Bella was the one holding her up. Her heart gave a small flutter at the sight of her lover's eyes hovering beside her, and then she straightened, patting Bella's hand to let her know that she was okay.

"They're coming fast. They're underwater somewhere. It looks like a lake. I'm not sure if there's anything close to the mountains that would look like this, but I know they're not in Seattle anymore. They're making their move," she told Carlisle as soon as she caught her breath.

He nodded once and turned to Esme. "We're going to need to set up a perimeter," he said and she gave his shoulder a pat.

"C'mon boys, Rosalie," she said as she scurried towards the far border of the trees. Edward, Rosalie, and Emmett were quick to respond, but Jasper hung back a bit, his eyes on Alice. She held his gaze for long enough to see that he could feel how hard it was for her to study these visions, and she could feel him calming her down the way he'd always done. Part of her wanted to shake it off and remind him that they weren't going to be able to do this all the time anymore, but another part of her enjoyed his concern, enjoyed feeling calm again, and only wanted to help him feel useful.

"Jasper?"

Carlisle's voice broke the spell both Alice and Jasper had fallen under and they snapped their attention to him, but their father's eyes were only for his son. There was nothing tense in the air, only expectation, as if their foster father understood what was occurring and didn't want to jar either of them back into the real world and the very real danger they were all in. Carlisle held out a hand.

"Let's be off," he said, in a most gentle and understanding tone.

Casting Alice one last long look, Jasper gave his father a short nod and the two of them raced after Esme and the others.

Alice sighed though her nose and then turned to Bella with a small, tight smile on her face that spoke more about her nerves than about what had occurred between her and Jasper. "C'mon. It's going to be a long road up the mountain to where we want to hide," she said. The words pained her to say and she'd expected Bella to show some sort of upset at having to travel so far, but the human only nodded and set her jaw before they gathered their things—tent, clothes, and food—and made their way across the clearing and up a path marked by two crossed trees.


	13. Chapter 13

"Will Jake and the others be joining us?" Bella asked as they trekked upwards through the mountain.

Alice messed up her eyes and Saw her way onto the shape shifters' path. From what she could See, they had begun traveling up the mountain much in the same way that the Cullen family had done—in one great, angry, fur-backed group of wolves with teeth bared and anger in their eyes. Or maybe that was just the way they appeared to Alice. Coming back out of her vision, she stumbled a bit and cast a grateful look at Bella when she felt her lover catch her arm. "Yes. They're on their way now. It shouldn't be long before we catch sight of them from where we're going."

"We overlook the clearing?" Bella asked.

Alice nodded, pointing to a small ridge that could be seen over the tops of the trees. "See that slab of gray stone? That's where we're going. Carlisle wanted us to determine a place where we wouldn't be found and that's probably the best bet. I'd like to be able to watch what's going on below us, but I want us to have the advantage of camouflage." She patted the canvas bag on her shoulder with a wry smile and waited while Bella studied the picture on the front.

"A green and black tent?" she asked at long last.

Alice nodded and slipped her fingers between her lover's. "The better to _not _see you with, my dear."

With a small laugh, Bella squeezed Alice's hand and they walked a bit farther in silence. Even though the hike to the ridge was long and slightly arduous, neither of them fought for breath. They arrived at their sight with just enough time to set up camp and begin settling down for the night, the sun already low over the side of the mountain. It made Alice shiver, a long, low chill running down her spine, and she kept glancing over the side of the ridge to see if anything was happening below. So far, the woods were clear and silent, just like the sky had turned out to be.

As she pulled out the tent and began snapping the pieces into place, Bella's eyes drew her attention to her lover.

"Are you all right?" Alice asked, studying her lover's figure to see if there was some injury or malady she hadn't noticed before.

"I was wondering the same about you," Bella admitted.

Blinking, Alice straightened up and pushed a hand through her hair. "What do you mean?"

She watched Bella chew on her lower lip, casting her gaze out over the mountain. The human wrapped her arms around herself, her flannel shirt and crocheted beanie not doing her much good against the cold and Alice could see the blue trails of goosebumps rising over her lover's skin. When Bella turned back to her, there was something hard in her eyes that hurt Alice as much as it seemed to be hurting Bella.

"Is there something going on between you and Jasper?" she asked.

The question shocked Alice so badly that she almost laughed out loud at the sound of it, but the sight of Bella's face told her that that would've been the worst possible thing she could do. Instead, she took a deep breath through her nose and shook her head. "Not anymore, no. But you need to understand something about us, Bella. He and I have been with each other for years." She gave a small, humorless laugh as she thought back over the incredible span of time that included. "That kind of thing—that helping each other and looking out for one another and having no one else—brings you together in ways you could only imagine until you're in them. He was my mate and my best friend."

"But did you love him?" Bella asked. Her question was soft, the way her eyes were, and Alice could sense no malice coming from her lover.

"I did. Or I thought I did, until I met you. I thought he was my one true, great, universal love," she said and then laughed, turning the tent stakes she still held over and over in her hands. "I know it sounds silly, but I thought that was what we had. I saw him in a vision and that's how we wound up together. But when I met you, that changed." She shrugged and tossed the stakes to the ground. "I thought I knew my heart, but I guess I didn't know it as well as I thought I did."

"He seems very sad now," Bella whispered, nodding down the ridge to where the other Cullens stood. "He looks at you all the time and I feel like he's trying not to cry."

The corners of Alice's mouth pulled down as she followed her lover's gaze and studied Jasper from between the tops of the pine trees. She could still see the lines on his face, the heaviness in his jaw and shoulders. She couldn't hear what was being said between everyone, but she felt like she could read Jasper's mind without any of Edward's powers.

Alice had thought she'd been alone in reading the discomfort that Jasper now felt around both her and Bella, but if Bella could see it—especially on a vampire's face—then it must've been hurting him more than she'd imagined. That wasn't the kind of pain she'd wanted to put him through, but it was either that, or let him suffer in silence while she and Bella suffered in relationships that they didn't belong in. She couldn't decide which evil was lesser…or she had, and she didn't want to admit it because it had been the choice she'd made when she told him the truth.

"It's a long time to spend with someone, only to find out that they weren't meant for you."

"Will he be okay?"

Startled, Alice looked up at Bella. The human watched her with intent and curiosity. "I think so, but only after a very long while."

Bella nodded and then closed the distance between them with long, slow steps. She took Alice's hands in both of hers and held the vampire's gaze for just as long. "Will you?"

Alice smiled a bit and touched their noses together. "I think so."


	14. Chapter 14

A jolt in the future brought Alice away from her time with Bella and deep into a Vision. In it, she could See the newborn army. They had cleared the lake and were making fast progress up the side of the mountain, a sight that made her heart clench in her chest and her jaw drop so that it nearly touched the ground. Just as the Vision started to fade, and she felt herself relaxing again, another Vision jolted her Sight and she was flung almost diagonally through the Sight to where the clearing with the rest of her family stood.

There, the wolf pack had arrived already and stood at attention. She didn't know which wolf was Jake, but she could swear she almost felt his presence among them and the fact that he was there at all made her feel better. It told her that he'd been able to talk to his pack leader and that everyone had come to some kind of agreement about the necessity of defending their lands. The last thing she Saw was Carlisle and Jasper talking to the wolves before the Vision faded and she blinked awake to see Bella's eyes hovering in front of her. Alice nearly melted at the sight of them, their concern ringing almost as true as Jasper's had when he'd been the one to help her out of a vision.

Swallowing hard, the moment broke as Alice regained her footing and Bella's hold relaxed on her vampire lover's arms.

"What did you see?" she whispered.

Alice turned towards the mountains behind them, focusing on a patch of sprawling green trees that covered the bottom of the passages like a great carpet. She could've sworn she could almost see the treetops shivering with the approach of the army. "Newborns. They're clearing the forest now and are making their way up the mountain. They're going to get here before too long."

She heard Bella gasp just as she felt a tug on her mind of a different sort.

"What are you going to do?" Bella asked. "How are you going to tell the others?"

The tug on Alice's mind grew more insistent and then she remembered what it was. A laugh burst from her lips and she wrapped an arm around Bella's shoulders. The human just stared at her as though wondering if she'd chosen the craziest of the Cullens to fall in love with. "Edward. He can read my mind. He's trying to right now. Excuse me for a second," she said, relaxing her mental guard as Bella's face softened.

_They're on their way?_ Edward asked through their telepathic connection.

In her mind, she could almost picture Edward talking to her, his face hard and his eyes bright with instance as he peered into her thoughts. She knew he was aware of their approach without having to ask what she'd Seen, but part of her seriously appreciated his asking. It made her feel like he felt bad for the intrusion and that he wanted her to know that she had permission to tell him what was going on in her thoughts and Visions—that he wouldn't just take them from her the way he could do with so many other people.

Alice nodded, an affirmation she felt more than thought, but she knew he could hear the positivity in her mind. _They're almost upon you. I'm not sure there's going to be much time to prepare._ She glanced at Bella, who watched her with wonder and questions in her eyes, but who also smiled a bit when Alice looked at her. It brought a smile to Alice's own lips, one that came unbidden, but one that also wasn't entirely unwelcome. Turning back to the clearing, Alice nodded. _Are the wolves doing well?_

_Well enough, _he said, but even through their thoughts, she could hear the dismissiveness of his voice, as if he was physically waving the question away with his hand. _We're going to meet them head-on if they attack. Did you see any sort of plans forming? They haven't convened and done a meeting at all, have they? They haven't made any new decisions?_

Alice pursed her lips and shook her head, a negation that, again, she knew he could feel through their telepathic link. _I'll let you know if anything changes. The leader is definitely the boy who's gone missing—the Riley kid. I'm not sure who else would be behind this, but—_

_—I guess we'll find out soon enough,_ Edward finished the sentence with a sigh and what felt like a long, hard nod. _Okay. Let me know if anything changes for us. Keep Bella safe._

Alice nodded in real time and pushed her shoulders back a little farther to bring her back up straight. _I will._

She felt the mind link go silent not a second later and a sort of heaviness set over her heart. A small wonder drifted through her mind about whether or nor this would be the last time they spoke to each other. The thought was a tiny kernel of a piece of fear that had been dancing on her heart for most of the day, but even as it occurred to her that they might not survive, she set her jaw and reminded herself that if it were, she would know and they would have a way to counteract that.

Right?

Bella's hand in hers made her jump and she gave her lover a shaky smile as the laughter disappeared from Bella's face.

"What's wrong?" the human girl asked, reaching up with one free hand to brush her fingertips against Alice's cheek. "You've got a worried face on again."

Alice smiled back, a gesture she didn't feel and one that she knew didn't reach her eyes. Taking Bella's fingers, she kissed the cold digits and then looked to the clearing, her eyes on her family and the wolves as they did quick, light training in anticipation of the oncoming storm. "I'm hoping this won't be the last time we get to speak with them. I know it sounds silly," she said before Bella could contradict her, "but it's one of those fears that doesn't feel so ridiculous at the time. Newborns are strong and uncontrollable in their first hour of life. I'm hoping we'll be strong enough to overcome whatever they bring."

Bella's lips on Alice's cheek brought an unexpected heat to the vampire's face and before she realized it, her arms were around the human's waist. She pulled Bella as close as she could, burying her face in the human's shoulder and pushing her nose into the jacket to breathe deep and fill her head with the smell of her lover.

"We'll be okay," Bella whispered into Alice's ear. "We'll be—"

_SMACK!_

The first sounds of fighting below pulled Alice's head upright. Holding her breath, she stood up straight, but kept her arms around Bella's waist, her keen eyes glaring through the trees to see the wolves and Cullens charging the newborn army. One glance at Bella told her everything she needed to know—the human had heard it, too, and knew exactly what it meant.

Alice froze. She had hoped she'd been hearing things and that everything wouldn't escalate and happen so quickly.

Instead, the battle had already begun.


	15. Chapter 15

Standing at the very edge of the precipice looking over the clearing, Alice watched the fight taking place. She couldn't hear Edward's thoughts anymore, but she didn't have to—the tension she could see below her told the story clearly enough.

The wolves had arrived and were lined up in the forest behind the rest of the Cullen family so that, as the newborns charged into the clearing, the wolves bounded out around the vampires. The attack came mostly as a surprise, but she could also see that most of the newborns took it as a challenge, something fun and exciting to try out when they thought they'd only be facing other vampires.

She could also see more numbers than she'd anticipated. When Alice had Seen the newborns charging through the lake, most of them had been obscured by the darkness of the water and she hadn't been able to make out their true breadth. Here, she watched with increasing anguish as _one more and then another _charged out of the woods at her family.

Her heart leapt when she saw Carlisle and Esme working together, taking turns catching and ripping the heads off of the newborns. She wanted to sing when she saw Rosalie and Emmett pirouetting around clusters of young vampires, her with her quick hands and him with his brute force, both of which came as a help to the wolves. She could see the tribe getting mauled every so often, a small group of newborns clasping onto their furry legs and clinging to their wolf bodies. Emmett made a point of sticking close to one end of the clearing, where half of the wolves had congregating in the fight, and Rosalie had chosen the other half, taking care of the same kind of job that her mate was doing, only in a completely separate area of the fight. It made Alice wonder if that had been a plan all along, or if they were just that coordinated. Either way, it filled her with pride to see her foster siblings so attuned to each other.

Edward flanked Jasper, something she hadn't thought he'd be doing. Part of her had wondered if he would be in the woods, trying to track down the stray newborns and rip them to shreds in his fury. But no, he and Jasper, both war-torn heroes of their own making, soldiered on side-by-side. At their flanks, she could see Jake's red wolf fur and another wolf, silver-haired, beside him, though she wasn't sure which of his tribe members it was. She could read the determination on each of the vampires' faces, the desire to do what needed to be done and to protect both their family and their human charge for as long as it was required.

The newborns remained faster. They twisted and turned, surprising both vampire and wolf alike until there were moments where Alice's heart almost stopped in her chest and she was certain that the battle was lost. Moments like these brought Carlisle or Esme, or one of the nameless wolves in Jake's tribe, into the foray and she sagged with relief to watch them get saved. Every so often, Alice's fists clenched and she forced herself not to tense up too much because she needed to be able to access her Visions if something truly dire happened—such as the Volturi made a decision. Still, no matter how relaxed she made herself, her eyes and ears remained on the battle and she could feel an old spark burning in her, longing to go down and defend her family as best she could with the rest of her siblings. She hated leaving them alone and being so helpless.

If she'd had a proper moment to consider it, she might've shocked herself to know that this was how Bella often felt.

After a few minutes of silent gasping and careful watching, Alice jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Beside her, Bella's wide eyes pleaded.

"What's happening?" the human girl whispered, as if afraid that asking would only herald bad news.

Alice's shoulders dropped a bit and she pointed down to the clearing, though she knew her lover couldn't see what was going on. "We're slightly overrun with newborns. They're just far too many and we're not fast enough. But I'm glad you talked to Jake," she said before Bella could burst out crying at the sound of this. "He and the rest of the tribe are down there and they're doing so well."

Bella sighed and put her hands to her chest, clenching her fingers as if in prayer, her eyelashes fluttering. "That's such good news," she whispered, her nose pointed to the clearing.

Alice smiled a little bit as she realized her lover was right, but then she was knocked out of balance by a huge Vision. It sucked her into her head, pulling her with the force of a vortex until she was left reeling and gasping for breath.

But there was no time for that. Instead, she was Shown images of a bright red flash and a brown smudge, one following the other through the woods, their movements fast. The longer she watched, the clearer everything became, as if the entire world had been on super-fast-forward and Alice had become able to slow the movie down to slower-than-real-time. She looked closer and saw the face of the brown smudge—Riley, the leader of the newborns, or so they thought, had a leer on his face. She Saw him sniffing the air as he ran, Saw him admiring the field and realizing there was something wrong. Ahead of him, the red flash kept running. This vampire knew something that Riley and the other newborns didn't.

As soon as Victoria's face came into view, Alice realized what was wrong and what they'd both figured out before any of their army had even considered the problem.

With a gasp, Alice fell out of her Vision and nearly hit the ground as she lost her footing. Bella's arms came around her like a shot and Alice gripped her lover's arms, staring up into the human girl's bright brown eyes as she felt fear and anger shaking in her own limbs.

"Victoria. She and the Riley boy aren't at the fight. They found out something was off. They realized you weren't with Edward the way they'd thought you'd be. They're coming."


	16. Chapter 16

For a long moment, both vampire and human stood in stunned silence, staring at each other and drinking in the implications of what this meant. Only a rattling from the surrounding trees, the shivering of leaves and pine needles in a place not too far away, roused them from their stupors and reminded them of where they were and what was coming.

Alice stood up straight, one hand on Bella's arm as she swept the tree-line with her eyes. When the rattling came again, but from a location on her other side, she started to back Bella up towards the tent.

"Bella," she whispered as her lover's hands moved to her waist, as though she was trying to maintain Alice's stance as a living—or undead—shield. "Get inside, sweetheart." She backed them up until the rim of the tent pulled under the heel of her boot. With her free hand, Alice reached for the curved pole, using the other to push her lover towards the rounded door.

Bella held onto Alice's waist, though, a motion that frustrated Alice. "No," her human lover whispered back, her breath so close to Alice's ear that it tickled a lock of hair there. "I'm staying with you. I'm not going to let you fight alone."

Alice did her best not to grit her teeth. Her angry retort sat firmly on her lips—_you won't survive against them if they're coming after you_—but was stopped when she saw someone walking through the trees towards them.

Both of her hands went to Bella's as they watched Riley make his way across the ridge. She could feel Bella stiffen up, pressing the line of her body against the back of Alice's, and for a second, she forgot all about keeping Bella inside the tent. Now it was too late. Now the boy had seen her. Now they had to fight.

"Where's Victoria?" Alice demanded. She kept part of her vision on the boy—on his sickly pallor, on his starkly black clothes, on his glowing red eyes and their hungry line of vision—while she scanned the woods behind him for his own lover.

A small quirk of a smile lifted on Riley's lips and the sight sent chills down Alice's spine, as she knew it was probably intended to do. Bella's grip tightened. "She's coming," he promised.

Alice shook her head. "You know she's only using you. You know that, whatever it is she's promised you, it's a lie." She took a deep breath and held Bella's hands tighter to her own waist, trying to remind herself that the human was still in her reach. Alice gave the forest behind him another once-over, but the trees yielded no sign of their red-headed counterpart.

The smile on Riley's face only quirked downwards once, and then it popped back up. "She said you'd say something like that. You know what else she says? That you have mind tricks. That you can reach into people's heads whether they want you to or not. You can speak to them and confuse them if you want to."

Alice would've laughed if the situation had been anything other than what it was. Her mind went to Edward, picturing the things that Victoria must've told Riley while they were preparing to fight.

_I wonder if that was who Riley was expecting. I wonder what he thinks of the situation now that Edward's not here._

As if he was listening in—and he very well could've, she realized, as she didn't know what the state of the fight in the clearing had become—she felt something tug at her mind.

_Alice, what's going on? Who's there?_

Edward's voice came, loud and clear as a church bell, through her head and it took all of her willpower not to fight him off. She hoped he could just see through her thoughts and try not to talk to her the way she'd tried not to bother him during his fight.

To Riley, she said, "And I'm sure Victoria knew all about who you were going to face coming into this battle. I'm sure she told you just where to find the human girl. Did she tell you why she wanted you to do this for her? Did she tell you about James and about their love affair?"

Riley's face quirked again and this time, Alice caught another movement in the trees. A flash of red streaked by before she found Victoria sitting above them, her eyes bright and angry, her breast heaving as if she'd run a thousand miles—and she may well have, Alice reminded herself, though she wouldn't have needed to breathe—or as if she'd become increasingly angered with the exchange between her pet and one of the Cullens. Alice could even see the stark bones of her knuckles pressing through the tops of Victoria's skin where she gripped the tree, the bark crushed under her nails and the tree limb dangerously close to breaking apart itself under her furious touch.

Everyone in the clearing turned to look at her. Riley's face finally revealed the touch of doubt that Alice had planted there, but Alice didn't let that sway her. She kept her face neutral of the pride she felt at cracking Victoria's shell, focusing instead on riling up her opponent enough to attack first, just so she could see what she was working with.

"Don't listen to them, Riley," Victoria said, her voice smooth and steady as it flowed over them. She would've been a great singer, Alice thought, and a dot of pity formed in her chest at the idea of it. "They're trying to deter you. They want you to turn against me. They don't believe in our kind of love."

"Didn't she tell you about James, Riley?" Alice asked, as if Victoria hadn't spoken.

_Alice, is that Victoria? Is she there with you?_ Edward's voice sliced a fine cut through Alice's thoughts again and she wanted to smack her foster brother for interrupting just as Victoria spoke again.

"They don't believe in fighting for eternity. They don't believe in asking for favors from those you care about, only about ripping apart anyone who doesn't abide by their beliefs. They would take you and brainwash you."

Alice laughed this time, making the sound so loud and long that the boy had to look at her. She could see the anger growing in Victoria. "Is that what she's been telling you? Is that what she has you believing this is? Riley," she said, shaking her head and taking a step towards the boy. He didn't move. Behind her, Bella whimpered, but Alice kept hold of her lover's hand, wary of Victoria as she leaned over her branch, her eyes fixed on the connection between the vampire and human.

"Riley, her mate was James. She has no great love with you. She made you—made all of your friends and army—so that she could come after Bella. She made you so that you could fight us because we killed her one true love. James." Alice looked up at Victoria, who had begun to crouch so low in the tree, so ready to fight, that she looked like some sort of deformed cat. When she spoke, she kept her eyes glued to the red-headed vampire. "She only believes in one eternity, and that's one with James. One without Bella in her life. She has no desire for eternal life with you."

"Is this true?" she heard Riley say in an almost incomprehensibly quiet voice.

_Alice?_ Edward asked just as Victoria gave a shrieking cry and launched herself from the tree at them.


	17. Chapter 17

Alice pushed Bella out of the way just in time. She heard the human girl stumble and cry out as she landed against the tent right when Victoria tackled Alice to the snow

The nomad was stronger than she looked. Alice had never had to fight the woman before, something they'd made sure of when they'd stopped the baseball game between the Cullens and the nomads only months before. Now, she struggled to keep Victoria's hands from circling her neck.

Gritting her teeth, Alice lifted her knees and rolled backwards. Using her feet to toss the nomad, she flung Victoria over her head, flipping herself so that she landed in an upright crouch. One glance behind her told her that the nomad slid through the snow, grasping at the rocks buried underneath to catch her fall.

The glance had given Riley enough time to sneak up on Alice. The boy landed a solid kick to the clairvoyant's side, but when he tried to hit her again, she spun to her side and out of the way, putting a good three feet between her and the newborn.

He charged after her, though. Getting to her feet, Alice met him in the middle, catching his shoulders and faking a turn. As she spun one way, he ground to a halt, thinking she was going to pass him instead of fight. Instead, Alice pushed her weight into his shoulders and shoved him, hard, into the trees. She felt the ripple through her body as she used her whole weight and sent him sprawling backwards. He flailed, hitting the forest with a loud crack, and she turned back to Victoria.

The nomad, in the five seconds where Alice and Riley had fought, made her way to where Bella was standing and pushing herself behind the tent to stay as out of the way as possible. Seeing Victoria's hands reaching for her lover, Alice cried out and dove. In a moment of gracelessness that was often uncharacteristic of her, the clairvoyant slipped in the snow, catching herself in enough time to use her momentum and let it propel her towards the nomad.

"Alice!" Bella cried out two seconds before she arrived.

The event happened in slow motion for the clairvoyant—as Alice slid towards her lover, she could see Victoria's arms reaching out, snagging Bella around the throat and across the shoulders, all with startling clarity. Blinking, Alice found herself at the nomad's feet and dropped her weight to the ground, wincing at the impact of her elbows against frozen stone.

She crashed into Victoria, kicking the nomad's legs out from beneath her. Victoria toppled onto Alice, bringing Bella with her, until all three women sprawled in the snow. The vice-like grip Victoria had had on the human's neck broke and Alice used this opportunity to snag the nomad's arms, wrenching them behind her back with a force unlike any other and one that threatened to rip them out of their sockets.

"No!"

The shout pulled Alice's attention to the opposite side of the clearing, where Riley had recovered in the ten seconds that it had taken Alice to claim victory over the nomad. His eyes seemed to grow two sizes as he watched the vampires struggle. If Alice hadn't known any better, she would've said he had tears in his eyes.

She blinked and he charged forward. She blinked again and when she opened her eyes, she had just enough time to see the anger marring his face before he knocked her to the ground. Alice cried out, but didn't let go of her grip on Victoria until Riley took a handful of her hair and wrenched her head back.

The movement shocked her so much that she let go and clawed at his hands. She could feel his breath on her cheek as he laughed close to her ear, a cruel, grating sound that would've struck fear into her heart even as a human. The sound was joined by Victoria's laughter, and Alice saw the nomad hover over her exposed neck for a beat before two hands circled her waist.

"Do it, Riley," Victoria whispered, her crazed, wild eyes boring into Alice's.

A breath of fear rattled through Alice as the newborn's hands rightened in her hair. She braced herself for the moment of truth just as she caught the scent of something sweet, warm, and heady, like violet-flavored honey drizzled over fresh sweetbread. It smelled like everything good in the world. It smelled like hope. It smelled like…

"Bella?" Alice breathed.

The eyes of every vampire turned at the same time. Off to the side, near the center of the clearing, the human stood with angry determination on her face and a long, dark line of blood running down her arm to pool into her hand from inside the sleeve of her overlarge flannel shirt.

The distraction was enough. Alice dropped her weight, slipping from Victoria's arms and freeing herself from Riley's grip. As she fell, she reached back and snagged the nomad's arms. The movement caught Victoria by surprise and she slid after Alice.

Unfortunately, Riley did, too. Alice felt his hands on her shoulders, feeling for a better grip on her neck than the one he'd had before, and as soon as he did, she started to lose her own hold. A whine escaped her lips when he began to tug on her, hard.

"That's it, Riley. That's the way," she heard Victoria saying.

A snarl split the air, close enough to them that Alice could feel her eardrums banging around inside her skull. For a second, the stench of wet fur assaulted her nose, and then Riley was crying out. Alice winced as his hands were dragged from her neck, but she turned in time to see a great reddish-brown wolf lift him aside and into the woods.

"Victoria!" he called, his half-useless fingers digging at the snow and in tot he trees for a way to hold off against the wolf.

Alice kept her eyes on the nomad, who blinked and stared at the newborn with such surprise that Alice wondered if she was really seeing Riley for the first time.

Something snapped and Alice looked over to see Riley tossing a broken tree limb as he grasped for another to hold. The wolf tugged with every ounce of its strength, doing its best to separate the vampire from its grips and kicking up a mountain of loose snow in the process. Alice almost pitied the newborn, whose eyes filled with pleading tears.

"Victoria, please!" he called.

Alice saw Victoria make the decision one second before it appeared in her head. She didn't even need the Sight to watch the light in the nomad's eyes change. Pushing back her shoulders, Victoria turned from the newborn to survey the rest of the clearing. Alice recognized the determination in her eyes, a sight that locked itself onto Alice and didn't spare a glance for Riley.

Another limb snapped and the newborn's plaintive "No!" told her everything she needed to know about whether or not the newborn recognized Victoria's decision. She didn't hear him struggle again as the wolf dragged him off into the woods.

In the space of time between Victoria making her decision and Riley's disappearance, Alice moved. It wasn't a huge window, but it gave her enough chance to tackle Victoria to the ground. As the nomad struggled, biting and spitting, Alice took huge chunks of Victoria's orange hair and used it to lift the nomad's head. She bashed Victoria's skull into the ground as hard as she could, one, two, three times while the nomad tried to scratch at Alice's eyes, face, hands, shoulders, arms—anywhere she could reach.

Gritting her teeth, Alice tugged Victoria's head with all her might, the nomad's screams filling her ears. Reaching deep inside herself, the clairvoyant heaved a breath and twisted her hole torso hard to the left.

A loud _clink!_ filled the air. Victoria's head came off in one clean, if jagged, swipe and tumbled to the ground, her hair bright and bold against the white snow and black mountain earth.

Heaving a sigh, Alice stood up and tried to stop her knees from shaking.


	18. Chapter 18

"Alice!" Bella called.

With trembling hands, the vampire turned just in time to catch her human lover as she flung herself into Alice's arms. The scent of blood overpowered Alice's senses and she staggered backwards a step, trying to stop the salivating and willing herself to turn away from her lover's bleeding arm.

"Your cut," she gasped, swallowing hard. Alice wrapped her hands around her lover's small waist and pushed the human girl back, covering her nose with her hands when Bella finally released her. "You're bleeding," she said at the hurt and confused look her lover wore.

Bella swore as she remembered and tried to tear a piece from her shirt. "God, I'm so sorry, Alice," she said as she struggled to rip the fabric.

Unable to stand the temptation any longer, Alice reached over and tore a strip free, knotting it hard against the cut. Her fingers lingered on her lover's soft, supple skin, the tips mere centimeters from the lines of drying blood on Bella's arms. Only the tout of Bella's cheek against hers brought her back from her thoughts.

"I'm sorry," the human whispered, moving her arms out of reach and taking the vampire's hands instead.

Alice shook her head, leaning into her lover's cheek. "Don't be. You did what you had to do." She gave a small laugh that wasn't really a laugh. "If you hadn't, I'd probably be dead by now."

She felt Bella nod and the skin of the human's cheek went cold as Alice felt the blood drain from her face. "And I'd probably be at the mercy of Victoria."

Dropping her lover's hands, Alice pulled Bella close as she wrapped her arms around the human's waist. The movement helped to push thoughts of death from her mind, reminding her that her lover was safe and warm and solid in her arms, a still-living presence tucked beside Alice's body.

"Speaking of Victoria," Bella said, her voice cutting through Alice's thoughts.

Alice gave her one final squeeze and then let go, her attention turning to the nomad where she lay in pieces on the ground. She gave the body a tight smile and hopped to the tree line, tearing two small, but sturdy branches from a lower limb. Setting these aside, she grabbed a few thicker branches and made a generous woodpile at the base of the tree before hauling them into her arms and depositing them on top of the nomad.

"What's all this?" Bella asked, watching as Alice made a pyramid of the branches directly over Victoria's abdomen, stuffing the severed head inside the remaining crawl space.

"We have to burn the body," Alice said. She picked up the two remaining branches and rubbed them together as hard and as fast as she could. It took a minute, but soon enough, the motions had produced a thin line of smoke that popped to life with a red-gold flame at its center. Alice touched these to the dead nomad's neck and feet before she dropped them onto the stick pyramid and the whole array went up in a rush of heat.

"That should do it," she muttered, just as a hard tug on her mind pulled her forward. She felt her thoughts give a lurch and gasped as she saw the forest below them. The Vision dragged her downward into the lush green and brown carpets at the base of the mountain, places where the snow hadn't touched. As she Watched, four figures emerged like smoke from amongst the trees. Like a dream, Alice felt that they'd been there the whole time, though she couldn't remember where they'd come rom, how long they'd been there, or what their purpose was.

It ceased to matter, though, when their faces came into view. Jane's was first, an angry child with a bright pink line of a mouth and a glare in her eyes that told Alice she'd been promised a day off and was having to cut into it to deal with whatever it was she came for. Felix was next, to Jane's immediate left, towering over his friends and wearing a humored expression on a face that had rounded and expanded with the maturity of a man in his mid-twenties. To Jane's immediate right, Demetri sauntered even as he flew across the debris of leaves. Though he was shorter than Felix, his face carried the same age, though his slender physique kept the skin of his cheeks tight to his bones instead of expanding in the jaw and cheeks. Finally, to Jane's far right, Afton glided just a step behind his mates. He watched his friends with a sort of uncertain pride, as if he wasn't sure whether or not he belonged amongst their ranks. Seeing him even confused Alice, but she put her worry away when the Vision ended, shoving her back onto the mountaintop and into Bella's reaching arms.

"They're coming," she gasped, drinking in the warm and welcome sight of her lover's eyes and taking comfort from the human's steady hands as she pushed herself upright.

"They?" Bella asked as Alice turned and dropped to one knee, holding her arms out behind her in a sort of backwards cradle.

"The Volturi," Alice said. Relief filled her when Bella took the hint and slid onto her back. Forcing balance into her legs, Alice stood up, gripping Bella's legs on either side of her waist, and tore off through the woods. Trees whistled past her ears and she only just heard Bella whisper, "The tent," as they surged downwards.

"We'll clean it up when we come back for Victoria," Alice called. "It won't be long, the sun's nearly up now."

She felt Bella nod against her hair and as she ran, she let it sink into her mind that they'd been up all night trying to fight the future. Even though she didn't sleep, Alice felt a weariness sink into her bones. When they reached the clearing, she took a deep breath and willed steadiness into her posture.

Bella lifted her head from Alice's shoulder as they stopped running and gave her vampire lover a shaky smile that spoke volumes about the tiredness the human was facing. Putting a hand to Bella's cheek, Alice promised her silently that there would be a long sleep after this was over.


	19. Chapter 19

"Alice!"

Edward's voice broke her from her thoughts and she looked up in time to see him running over. The tension in his body was palpable, but when he got a chance to study her and Bella, his shoulders relaxed and he slowed to a stop in front of them. "What happened up there?" he asked, nodding to the precipice.

She gave him a tight smile and watched as the rest of her family—Carlisle, Esme, and Jasper, most notably—ran up behind Edward. She was about to speak, but her chance was smothered when her parents came over and embraced her and Bella.

"We were attacked," Alice muttered into the polyester of her father's jacket. She took comfort from the feeling of his hand running up and down her back, the feeling of his lips on her hair.

"Attacked by whom?" Esme asked, releasing her hold on Bella and embracing Alice instead. Carlisle followed the switch and pulled the human girl into his arms so that Alice became overwhelmed by the soft warmth of her mother's sweater. The feeling made her want to cry. She wasn't used to being this loved, this cared about, and the fact that someone was so concerned filled her up so much she felt overwhelmed by it.

"Victoria," she said, her voice thick with emotion.

A note of alarm shot through their group. She watched Esme and Carlisle exchange a glance before turning back to her. "What was Victoria doing here?" Esme asked.

Alice heaved a sigh and slipped her hand into Bella's, pulling the strength and warmth of her human lover into her body the way a dehydrated beggar would gulp water. "She's the one who created Riley. She helped him create the newborns, making all sorts of promises about what they would be when the war was over."

Bella nodded softly and then turned to their small audience. "She made the army to come after me. I guess she figured it was so hard for her to get me killed before that she needed a whole mess of help in order to succeed this time."

"Only she didn't realize where we were—or who was there—until after she set the newborns onto us," Alice continued. A shiver stole up her spine at the thought. "I guess she must've found us afterwards. She must've followed some scent or another."

With a cringe, she watched her parents' faces fall. Looking around at the sight, she saw the field of dead, headless bodies and wondered just how badly things had gone.

"Edward said he saw what was happening, but vaguely," Carlisle said, his voice cutting through the tension. "He knew you were in distress, but he couldn't say how."

Alice gave a small, humorless laugh. "I can imagine. What happened down here? Is everyone okay?"

Quick nods came from everyone in the group, sending a wave of relief through Alice's shoulders. "There were more newborns than we'd expected, but we managed ourselves better than they'd guessed." He nodded at Esme and she shared his smile. "It's like we always feared—they're strong, but they don't know their own strength. They're uncoordinated and it gave us an advantage."

At this news, the stress Alice had felt in worrying about her family melted away. She gripped Bella's hand tighter as her eyes sought out Jasper's. She couldn't have said why they did this, only that she had something of an instinct for it. Her former lover stood at the back of the group, his head bowed and his blonde hair threatening to hide his face. She wanted to reach out and push it back, to tell him to pick his head up and to be proud of what he'd done.

He must've felt her gaze, for when he lifted his eyes, they found hers. Alice could practically trace the scars she saw there, the way she'd done so many times before over so many sleepless nights when he would cry out, tossing and turning against his memories and nightmares when they invaded during his downtime. She remembered being the only one to hold his hand, to whisper comforts into his ears, to trail her fingers through his hair while he clung, sweat stained even as a vampire, to her waist and begged—_pleaded_—with her to take these visions away. It still made her heart clench to think about.

Now, the sorrow in his eyes melted a bit when he looked up. She could see the relief there at finding her safe and sound, and it filled her heart with something akin to sadness to know that, even now, after she'd broken his heart, he was searching for her.

A loud crack pulled her attention from Jasper's and threw it onto the forest at the other end of the clearing. While she and the rest of her family watched, a quick, human-like figure darted from the trees and behind the stack of boulders in the middle of the grass. It was followed closely by a gray wolf, which was also being followed by a reddish wolf, all of whom disappeared behind the stones.

"Looks like we missed one," Alice heard Carlisle whisper under his breath, making the words sound more like a string of curses than a simple afterthought.

Her hand tugged and she looked to her side, where Bella had begun to surge forward, her face stricken.

"That's Jake," she whispered.

As they watched the boulders, waiting for the wolves to emerge again, they caught sight of the newborn racing out from around it. The gray wolf got to the vampire first, snatching him up in her jaws and throwing him onto the boulders with a great _crack!_ Alice found herself holding her breath as she watched the vampire recover and slam into the gray wolf's side, sending her rolling.

She leaped up again, but the reddish wolf had appeared, sailing over the boulders and knocking the vampire newborn over. For a second, they struggled on the ground. When the newborn got his arms around the reddish wolf's stomach, though, Bella broke away from Alice with a cry.

Not two seconds later, a muffled cracking echoed across the clearing towards them. The reddish wolf screamed, whimpered, and fell limp, hitting the ground with a thump as the newborn tossed it aside.

"Jacob!" Bella called, racing towards the reddish wolf.

Alice's heart gave a resounding thud, as if stirred from the grave by the sight of her lover running to her death, and she took off after her human. "Bella, no! Get back!" she called.

She caught up to Bella, wrapping her arms around the human girl and throwing them both down as the red, crazed eyes of the bloodthirsty newborn surged at them. Edward and Jasper appeared at either side of Alice's vision, ensnaring the newborn's arms and tearing them away with a grunt and the snap of bloodless porcelain. The anger and determination she read on their faces made her shiver, but no sooner had the newborn been dispatched—or its head torn off, not two seconds later—than Bella had extracted herself from Alice's arms and closed the space between her and Jacob.


	20. Chapter 20

A tug pulled at Alice's heart, but just as it did, she reminded herself that Jake was just a friend and that Bella wasn't running as if to a lover's side. Still, Alice took off after her human lover, followed by the rest of her family, to where Jake lay.

He'd phased back to his human form, his taut, bronzed muscles luminous in the light of the rising sun. But every part of him, from the backwards craning of his neck to the curling of his strong, bare toes, reeked of agony. His left hand clenched and cradled the length of his right arm to his chest and he seemed to do his best to stay on his left side, favoring his right.

"Jacob, you moron, I had him!"

Alice's head jerked to attention as a tall, lithe woman in a sleeveless gray shirt—very like the color of the wolf's fur, in fact—and short-cropped black hair rounded the boulders. As the vampire watched, the woman's almond-shaped eyes widened at the sight of her fallen comrade, raking over Jake's body from head to foot. The sight must've been too much for her—the woman stopped where she was, though her fingers seemed to reach out of their own accord before she realized what she was doing and dropped the action entirely.

Without a second thought, Alice realized that she recognized that look. It was the same one Jasper had worn after she'd had her first Vision in his presence during their post-breakup. Part of her was tempted to call it heartbreak, and she found that she longed to do just this, but the thought was dismissed when Carlisle fell to his knees on the other side of Jake. Alice watched his hands roam the shapeshifter's body, testing the muscles of the boy's arm and around the curvature of his lungs.

"Carlisle," Rosalie said from somewhere behind Alice.

They looked up to see a small group of about five black-haired, well-built men with hard expressions of stress or concern come around to where they were crouched. The tallest of them, a man with a perpetual frown etched into his eyebrows and the downward curve of his mouth, stepped forward.

"Not now, Leah," he growled, throwing a fast glance at the gray-shirted woman before coming to a stop beside the vampire doctor.

"The bones on his right side are shattered," Carlisle explained to this man. "You're going to need to take him back to his house. I can operate on him there."

The frowning man studied Carlisle's face, but just as he seemed about ready to reconsider, Alice felt another tug on her mind. Pitching forward, she felt herself being pulled until the only thing she saw below her was a sea of green—the tips of trees, their pines all a variety of verdant colors. She might've been soaring for how smoothly the Vision pulled her along, then it dove, and she was wound through the forest to where the Volturi strode. They exchanged a single glance between them and then moved faster, if that was possible, until they ran out of sight and the Vision blurred.

Blinking hard, Alice looked up to find Jake still lying on the ground in front of her, but this time, her father's arm had reached across the boy to touch Alice's shoulder. Meeting her father's eyes, she swallowed hard, not wanting to disclose the bad news, despite the soft understanding she saw in her foster parent.

"What happened?" he asked, his tone even.

"Volturi," she whispered. As soon as the word left her lips, she heard a volley of curses behind her, all in Emmett's rolling tone of voice.

Carlisle glanced once at his swearing son before he turned back to her with a soft nod. "How long?"

Remembering the Vision, Alice considered the numbers for time and distance in her head. "We have long enough to burn the bodies and get the wolves out of here."

Her father touched her cheek and stood up, facing the bronze-muscled pack behind him. "Then that's what we'll do. Take Jacob home, but quickly. I'll meet you there as soon as I can."

The leader, the frowning man, nodded and called a short command to the rest of his group. Alice put her arm around Bella's shoulder, pulling her human lover back as the pack moved forward and took up positions at Jake's arms and legs. Her heart gave a small clench when Bella reached out and trailed her fingers across her childhood friend's good shoulder, and another when she whispered, "It's going to be okay, Jake. I promise." But when Bella pressed her face to Alice's shoulder, the clairvoyant mentally berated herself for getting so touchy when all Bella was doing was expressing concern for her friend.

_She doesn't jump to defense every single time Jasper and I share a look, for God's sake,_ Alice reminded herself. As this realization sank in, she made a silent promise, a secret one that would stay between her and Bella, but one that could be seen from the stars: _I won't let myself become the kind of person who grows jealous at every sign of my lover's friendliness towards other people._

No sooner had she made this promise to herself than they watched Jake get carried away on the shoulders of his pack mates. The woman, Leah, seemed to linger behind at first, but once the walking really began, she caught up, cradling Jake's head.

"You're such an idiot sometimes, Jake," Alice thought she heard the wolf-woman mutter, her tone teasingly-concerned, but certainly not angry. The temptation to see into their future, to follow the ebb and flow of the wolf-woman's decisions to see where she and her "idiot friend Jake" might end up, tickled at the back of her mind.

A second later, they were gone, taking any fleeting ideas about seeing into their futures with them. Both Alice and Bella turned around, surveying the wreckage of the battle around them. The grimaces on the rest of the family's faces spoke volumes about what she knew had to happen next. Carlisle's eyes found Alice's, holding her gaze for a long second before turning to the rest of the group.

"Let's get to work before the Volturi arrive," he said.

Pressing a kiss to her lover's forehead, Alice nodded to the nearest body and, with Bella's assistance, began the process of piling the vampire carcasses up.


	21. Chapter 21

Despite the pressing need to get their work done as fast as possible, Alice fell into a kind of rhythm with the rest of her family, one that even Bella—to her great amusement—was able to keep up with. They didn't rush and they didn't leave a mess. Instead, they carried the bodies over to a great pile they silently established in the middle of the clearing. Here, they watched the carcasses become less numerous than the field of bodies had suggested upon first sight. This filled Alice with a sort of relief, but again, it made her question why this seemed to be a good thing.

_Perhaps it's because there weren't as many lives lost as we anticipated?_

Edward's voice broke through her thoughts and with a gasp, she looked up. Her foster brother stood across the fire from her, his weary eyes heavy as he studied her face.

_The words I didn't want to admit to myself,_ she telepathically agreed and watched as, with a flick of a silver lighter he'd taken from his pocket, her foster brother lit the bodies up into a roaring blaze, aided by lengths of tree branches placed at strategic angles to help further and direct the flames.

While they burned, Alice thought of all the children who had left their mothers and fathers childless by becoming vampires and now burning in the middle of what might as well be nowhere for their families. She thought about how their parents—their loved ones—would never know, and probably go their entire lives without any closure. She wondered what that would be like: to have no idea about what was happening with your child, or sister, or mother, or aunt, or friend. To know that they were missing and you couldn't do anything about it—the police couldn't find them, the missing signs went unanswered, the time passed, and you still had no idea.

"You're bleeding." Edward's voice jolted Alice from her thoughts and she glanced over her shoulder to where Bella was standing. As his fingers reached for her sleeve, the small rivulets of dried blood like smudges of ink on her arm, she shifted just out of his reach, touching the cloth bandage Alice had fashioned for her and hiding the visibility of the scrapes.

For a second, Alice's thoughts went back to the newborn bodies burning in front of them and she felt herself beginning to reel over the idea that, not a few months ago, Bella had wanted this. She'd wanted to be this. And as soon as the thought entered Alice's mind, she went to Charlie in her head and tried not to imagine the sorrow on his already troubled face. She tried not to imagine—or even See—Chief Swan becoming one of the parents who never finds out what happened to their child. She tried not to imagine how hard he would search, the resources he would pull, and possibly the people he would call into questioning in order to find out what had happened. The idea brought another to her mind—that she and her family would then be at risk and he would have them held until he could figure out why, when his daughter was alone with them, she had disappeared and why the Cullen family would tell them nothing. The prospect left her short of breath and she touched her throat for want of air.

"I was. Alice stopped it," Bella said, her voice breaking through Alice's thoughts and Alice blinked in time to see the human giving her vampire lover a small smile.

Edward didn't turn away, though. "Was it Victoria?"

Steeling herself, Alice dropped her hand from her throat and raised her chin up to face her brother. "She did it to save my life," she said, watching her brother's gaze turn slowly from his former lover to his foster sister.

The expression could've been neutral, had anyone looking at him been a human, but Alice could see the truth. It was hard and worried at once. The way he looked at her—with the same sadness and hope and longing that she'd always attributed with his knowing what others were planning before even she could See it—told her that he knew her thoughts. In fact, she was almost certain he'd had the same ones. It was a look that said, "Now you understand my opposition to her transformation, no matter how much she wants it."

Again, Alice lifted her chin, having begun to bow her face under the knowledge and sadness that she'd seen in her brother's eyes. "Victoria and Riley were about to kill me and she cut herself to distract them." With a small smile that she didn't really feel, Alice reached for her human lover. Bella came to her without hesitation and the warmth of the human's hand in hers tugged a true smile from Alice's lips, one she couldn't stop and wasn't sure she wanted to. "Without her, I'd be dead, and so would Bella, probably."

From the corner of her eye, Alice could see her foster brother nod. A loud, heavy rustling broke the moment in two and pulled the attention of the entire coven towards the tree line. There, they saw the flash of a small figure with long hair and wearing baggy clothes try to dart into the forest.

"Oh no, you don't," Emmett growled and shot off after it just as his father called, "Emmett! Be gentle. She's just a girl."

Blinking hard at the interruption, Alice turned back to her parents. They watched their foster son with worry etched into the subtle lines of their faces. When Emmett came back, he had a young girl with a soft face framed by long, tangled brown hair and frightened red eyes under his left arm.

"What's all this?" Alice asked, turning back to her parents. "Who is she?"

Sighing, Carlisle watched his son lead the girl towards them. "This is Bree Tanner. She was one of the newborns created by Riley. They brought her to fight, but instead, she stayed in hiding. When we saw her, we almost killed her, but she froze and screamed and begged us to let her go, so we put her aside until the battle was over."

"I don't understand," Alice said, exchanging a look with Bella as Esme stepped forward and took Bree from her son.

"Thank you, Emmett," she muttered, putting her hands on the newborn's shoulders before turning back to Alice. "She didn't want to fight. She was confused and we offered her asylum in exchange for her surrender." Esme's eyes flicked towards Bella and Alice immediately took one step to her left, half-hiding her human lover from the newborn's sight. "She's promised not to hurt any of us and we've promised to take her under our wings, should the Volturi be so inclined to let us do so."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Alice asked, her eyes on the newborn. Bree kept her face to the ground, glancing up every so often with quick, flighty glances at those surrounding her before removing her gaze entirely, as if scared to be caught looking at the others.

Carlisle nodded. "It's been proven to me time and again that any vampire who's willing can learn to control their urges and be taught to behave as a part of a normal, civilized society. We were able to do that as a coven—I see no reason why we shouldn't extend such an opportunity to anyone else among us who wishes it." He clapped a hand on Bree's shoulder. The newborn jumped and then half-relaxed, but her eyes traced the faces of the family around her.

Just as she was considering her father's words, Alice felt a tug on her mind. This time, she didn't fall forward as much as felt her vision go blurry, and then confusion filled her thoughts. The Vision—if it could even be called that—showed the clearing. In fact, it showed the clearing just as it was, from Alice's perspective looking onto the forest. The only difference, she realized, was something subtle. At the very end of her senses, she could almost taste a change in the wind—a cold, hard blast and a rippling of the world as if a great curtain was parting and allowing something unnatural to occupy the holistic space. Just as the Vision died again, showing a brief rattling of the trees and the shrubs and a parting of the fog that slipped between the trunks in the early morning light, she knew exactly what this vision was showing her.


	22. Chapter 22

"They're coming," Alice called, just as the Volturi entered the clearing.

They swept across the grass like a great stream of black brocade cloaks and embroidered outfits. As she'd seen in the Vision, Jane led the way, followed by Felix and Demetri at either side, Afton lingering at the back. She felt her breathing hitch and jumped when Bella's hand tightened around her own. The reminder of her human lover sent a wave of fierce protectiveness through her shoulders and she stood up straighter, half-blocking Bella again as the rest of her family fell into line around her, just blocking the fire from view.

In no time at all, the Volturi stood only a handful of feet in front of them, lowering their hoods in unison, but Alice could see that only Felix took any pleasure in being here.

"I see we've missed the battle. Pity," Jane called, her voice carrying effortlessly on the wind. She studied each of them in turn, her eyes lingering first on Alice and then on Bella and Alice could've sworn she saw the tip of Jane's nose crinkle with disgust. "It's not often that the Volturi are rendered unnecessary," she said, turning her gaze on Carlisle.

Alice held her breath and glanced at her father as a thread of tension shot through the rest of the group. The move felt daring—even though Jane wasn't watching her, she felt that the other three liked to keep a close watch on the Cullen's coven. She wondered if they liked studying the way the family worked, trying to figure out how everyone meshed together without killing themselves off so easily the way the newborn army had managed to do. After such a proclamation from Jane, though, she could only guess at what her father was going to say.

"If you'd been here but a few minutes earlier, you would've been in it," he promised. The tone of the explanation was warm and caring, gentle the way only Carlisle could be. It was a promise he made in his best doctor's voice and Alice knew it was meant to soothe the rough patches created by Jane's proclamation.

Alice saw Jane's eyes flash and her shoulders straighten and it made her move her hand from Bella's to around her human lover's waist.

"Such a shame," Jane whispered, or nearly did, her voice grew so soft. A tremor shot up Alice's spine and she struggled to keep herself from showing such a weakness in the face of the guard. Then her eyes flicked to somewhere over their shoulders and her lips tilted upwards in a small smile and she threw a warm look at Felix. "Or perhaps not. Maybe we're needed after all."

Almost as one, the entire Cullen family turned to where Bree stood, hovering at the back of the group. At their attention, the newborn froze, crouching lower as if to hide herself behind the rest of the family. Without a sound, Jasper broke away from the group and put his arm around the young girl, raising his chin as he did, as if in defiance of the Volturi laws. It made Alice's breath catch in her chest and she hoped, more than anything, that the guards didn't see it the way she perceived they would. From her immediate right, she heard Carlisle speak, redirecting everyone's attention back to the Volturi.

"The young vampire was not among the fighters causing havoc. We found her hiding in the forest, terrified, and offered her asylum in exchange for her surrender," he said.

The line of Jane's mouth grew hard and the humor left the soft roundness of her cheeks. "That asylum wasn't yours to offer," she said in the same tone with which she'd celebrated the sight of the undead newborn. Alice watched her eyes shift to the space behind them once again, to where Bree stood, and a scream rent the air.

She couldn't help it—Alice spun on her heel, mouth agape, to see what was happening, and found that her mother, lover, and Rosalie had done the same.

Bree lay on the ground, her small body contorting itself into severely unnatural positions. Her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth yawned open with her scream, a grotesque picture for the kind of torture—completely mental and thus, entirely physical—that Jane was inflicting upon the newborn. It was only going on for a second before Jasper was on his knees, pressing his hands to Bree's face.

"Stop it!" he shouted and Alice's breath caught as she watched his cheeks redden, the scars on his face standing out in such bright relief that she would've been amazed if even Bella didn't see them. "Stop it!" he called again, but Bree's screams didn't cease.

"Who created you?" Jane asked, her voice as quietly deadly as ever. Alice wondered if Bree could even hear her through the red-hot pains shooting across her whole body, through the shrieks of agony emanating from her own lungs. It brought back painful memories for Alice—screams she understood the source of, terror she could both imagine and remember having lived, pain like she'd never experienced before. Memories of cement walls and white-robed doctors with full-face masks and long, ugly, shining needles that flashed under bright, bright lights in half-lit rooms, and sometimes even in the shafts of sunlight streaming into half-open corridors where people were caught misbehaving and given stronger doses of medications that they already couldn't handle a single shot of. A pair of tears slipped down Alice's cheeks and she pressed herself closer to Bella, who had taken to hiding her face in her vampire lover's shoulder.

Just then, something warm and heavy manifested itself over the family. A sort of peace and calm settled over Alice and she felt herself relaxing, her breathing growing steady. Sighing hard, she blinked herself from her memories as they melted back into the shadowed recesses of her human thoughts and turned back to where Jasper hovered over Bree. His hands still lingered on her cheeks, not so much pressing as stroking with the lightest of touches, but a determined frown furrowed his brow and the red of his cheeks still stayed in full bloom.

"What's your purpose here?" Jane demanded, shouting this time. The sound startled Alice so heavily that she jumped. Turning back to the guard, she could see the fury written on Jane's face as Bree screamed louder, longer, filling the air and the woods with the sound of her torment, even while not a single word of response was uttered.

"Stop it."

The angry, cursed words that spilled from Jasper's lips called Alice's attention back to him again and the sight of him took her breath away. All of the anger and fury he felt at the Volturi for torturing the young girl showed plainly on his face, but even as he grew fierce, Bree's screams calmed until they were morphed into sobs. She still trembled beneath his hands, her hands and legs stiffly held at their awkward angles, but a sort of odd, half-possessed serenity settled over the rounded features of her child's face. The breath was stolen from Alice's lips as she realized that Jasper was fighting Jane for control—and he may well have been winning.

"You don't have to do this," Esme said, her tone pleading. "She'll tell you anything you want to know."

Alice spared a glance at her mother and found the woman also trembling, though not quite to the same degree that Bree did. Instead, some deep, maternal instinct seemed to be pulling itself towards the newborn, begging Esme to run over to the girl and wrap her arms around Bree, rocking the child until every fever and fear slipped from her thoughts.

"She will," Jane said, her eyes flashing again and Alice watched her turn to the newborn. "You _will_," she repeated, the crease between her eyebrows deepening.

Bree whimpered, but nodded soon after, the violent bobbing of her head significant enough for Jane to release whatever hold she had over the girl, for the newborn's stiffened limbs went slack. Curling herself into a ball, tears streaming down her eyes, the newborn rolled over, pressing herself to Jasper's legs as he smoothed his hand over her hair, whispering to her under his breath. Alice's heart lightened to see the redness draining from his face and his scars going back to hiding, but the frown never left his brow—only the exertion did that.

"I did not release you for cowering and tears," Jane reminded the newborn, her voice so close that Alice almost believed she stood right at their backs.

Jasper bowed his head a bit more and Bree nodded. Pushing herself to her elbows, she looked at Jane through a curtain of hair, soothed by Jasper's hand on her back. "I d-don't know who c-created us. R-riley never said. H-he said our t-thoughts—" she swallowed hard, "weren't s-safe."

A surge of anger rose up in Alice and she turned to the Volturi. "It was Victoria, the nomad who sent herself and her small coven upon us in order to kill Bella not long ago," she said, hoping her voice sounded as strong and assured as she wished she felt.

"Perhaps you knew of her?" Edward asked from somewhere to their left. There was a hard kind of sarcasm in his voice that drew Alice's attention. He'd put himself between Bella and Rosalie, his hands trying not to clench themselves at his sides, but his eyes were only for Jane.

"Edward," Carlisle warned as Jane puffed up to stand nearly two inches taller.

"Had we known about Victoria's existence—and her apparent vendetta against your kin—we would've ceased it immediately," she said, her eyes turning towards Bree again. "As we'll do now."

A cold, dead weight settled over Alice's chest and she watched Felix begin to make his way over to the newborn.

"You don't have to do this," Esme called again, halting the Volturi guard in his tracks. "We'll take responsibility for her. We'll bring her under our wing. Won't you give her a second chance?"

Jane's eyes hardened and turned on Bella. "We aren't so generous as others might've been at one time, so no. We cannot allow that," she said, catching Alice's gaze. "I would remember this time, in excruciating detail. Caius will be interested to know that Bella's still human."

A chill ran down Alice's spine and she wondered if they knew Bella wasn't with Edward anymore. She could feel her brother's eyes on the side of her head just as Bella said, "The date's set. It won't be long now."

Alice tightened her grip around her lover.

"We'll see that it isn't," Jane whispered.

The promise tightened something deep in Alice's chest and she wanted to cry out against it, but Felix was already making the next move. He strode towards the rest of the Cullens with assurance, and even though they refused to part for him, he wound his way through their group with the ease of a black panther. The only tremors Alice felt came from the back of the group.

"No!" Jasper shouted, the command so violent that she turned around. To see him standing between the guard and the newborn was something so surprising that even she couldn't believe she was seeing it. The same anger that had risen up in his eyes when Bree had been tortured rose up again now, and part of her was willing to believe that it was this alone which stopped the guard in his tracks.

"You won't hurt her. She's just as hard-off as the rest of us. She came into this world with just as much kicking and screaming as we all did, and she deserves a happy life," he said, his voice ringing through the clearing.

Stunned silence met his proclamation for a good long minute. When Jane moved towards him, it was with a whispering of her cloak and the lightest crunching of her heeled shoes across the grass. Alice pressed Bella to her side and watched in amazement as Felix moved aside and Jane took his place, staring Jasper in the eye. She wanted to cheer when he didn't look away.

"Then you will be her charge," she whispered, her words something of a cursed proclamation instead of a blessing in disguise. Alice felt herself freezing up, but inside, she glowed with pride as Jasper met her words and stare evenly. "And should she slip up, even one more time—" The guard took a step back. "Well. I don't think I even have to finish that sentence," she said. Turning on her heel, she strode back through their group, Felix at her side—or as best as he could be, with having to weave around the Cullen family members.

Throwing one last glance over her shoulder, she met each of their eyes in turn, leaving Bella's and Alice for last and sending a great chill through the vampire's limbs. "We'll be around," she said and, with what seemed to be almost a puff of smoke, disappeared into the early morning mist as if she'd never even been there.


	23. Chapter 23

After the fight, everyone went their separate ways. Carlisle first went home with Alice and the others, but only to change cars and scurry off to the reservation, burning rubber all the way. Once Alice and Bella got back to the Cullen house, Bella kissed her vampire lover on the cheek and promised to be back soon.

"I need to go be with Jake right now," she whispered into Alice's shirt when he vampire pulled her close.

"Be careful," Alice said. With a nod, Bella relinquished herself and got back into her giant red truck, roaring off down the road until Alice couldn't physically see her anymore.

Inside the house, she felt that she could cut the tension with a steak knife. Emmett and Rosalie had already disappeared upstairs, but Edward had taken to the couch, where he lay prostrate, one arm dangling towards the floor with his head buried in the seat cushions. As she watched, Esme ran her fingers through his hair. Feeling her daughter's gaze on the back of her head, the vampire mother glanced up and gave Alice a soft smile.

"Why don't I make us all some tea?" she asked, disappearing into the kitchen.

Confused, Alice turned to her brother. Edward picked up his head and met her eyes, but only shrugged and pressed his face back into the couch.

"I'm not sure what she means by that, but whatever it is, I'd go with her. I'm just too tired right now."

Nodding, Alice touched his shoulder and bypassed him as she wandered into the kitchen, only to come to a stop once again.

Jasper and Bree sat at the counter on two high barstools. The newborn's fingers gripped her own hands tightly, even as Jasper spoke to her in a quiet voice, a kind smile on his face that Alice knew all too well. Looking at the two of them, she wondered distantly if this was the beginning of a new love affair for him, but then she felt Edward enter her mind with the ease of a breeze through lace curtains.

_He's just protective. He tried to save her. She's like a little sister to him, it seems._

Setting her jaw, Alice sighed hard through her nose. _Thank you._

_Anytime,_ Edward muttered telepathically before he slipped from her thoughts once again.

At the sink, Esme was tipping a hospital bag of blood into a stainless steel tea kettle and for a second, Alice's heart skipped a beat. Stretching out her senses, she sniffed the contents of the bag and almost laughed with relief.

_Animal blood. Don't be stupid, Alice,_ she berated herself mentally and then glided over to where her mother was staring out the window at the newly risen sun, the day already waking up to see them battleworn.

"And we don't drink human blood," Jasper was telling Bree in a voice so low that it was only a rumble of sound in the kitchen. "Since we're living among them, it's not right to drink from them. We also don't believe it's right because we once were them."

"But don't you get—I dunno, like, cravings?" she asked, her soft voice sweet and kind and curious. It brought a smile to Alice's lips, reminding her of her own naiveté when she'd come to live with the Cullen family. Jasper's rolling laugh matched it, a half-growl sound because he was keeping his voice down for the sake of his aching and exhausted family.

"Yes. I'd be lying if I said we don't, but we're stronger than that. Or we try to be."

Beside her, Esme sighed long and deep, in through her nose and out through her mouth, as they felt the heat of the ill-used stove coming to life to the right of them. She kept her hands on the counter at the edge of the sink, her eyes on the window as she traced the gold of the sunlit trees and followed their path to the edge of their property.

"Life is so much more beautiful after a battle," Esme whispered, a sentiment that caught Alice off-guard.

"Mom?" she asked.

Blinking, Esme looked at her daughter. At first, the gaze suggested that she was seeing Alice for the first time, but then her eyes softened and a sad, but gentle smile spread across her face. Alice felt her mother's arm come around her side, holding her close while she pressed a light kiss on her daughter's forehead.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get so dark," Esme whispered and Alice could see the faint trace of laugh lines around her mouth as she smiled. She longed to reach out and touch them, to define them with her fingertips, as if to prove their existence, as if to ensure that yes, they were actually there and yes, that they were, in fact, alive, and not just living.

"It's okay," she said instead, and watched the moment float past her once more, only for her to begin mourning the loss of it. "I'm glad we're all safe, too."

Esme made a bit of a face. "Not entirely, but safer than before, yes. If what Jane said is any indication, then she and the others will be sticking around Washington for a little while."

Alice gave her mother a little nudge in the side, a move that made both of them rock in place. "Nothing's going to happen."

"That's not what I'm afraid of."

Frowning, Alice stepped back from her mother a bit. Heaving another sigh, Esme turned off the stove and removed the blood from the heat. She pulled a few small mugs from the cabinets and filled them halfway, distributing them among her other children, and the newborn child, before coming back to Alice, who already cradled a blue mug with the silhouettes of birds in flight etched into it with black ink. When Esme looked at her, her eyes held a grave seriousness that stuck every word Alice would've uttered into her throat if her mother hadn't spoken first.

"You and Bella are going to resolve this matter, aren't you?" she whispered, so quietly that even Jasper couldn't hear. "This matter of Turning Bella?"

Alice swallowed hard. From the corner of her eye, she felt both Bree's and Jasper's eyes on them before Jasper put his arm around the newborn's shoulders and they drifted off down the hall with their mugs in hand. Part of her had the insane desire to tell them not to spill, but if even Esme wasn't going to mention it, then she sure as hell wouldn't.

"Yes," Alice said at long last, her voice hardly a voice with the fear that Esme was instilling in her. "Of course."

When her mother relaxed, Alice felt the air flow back into her lungs. "Thank you. I'm glad to hear that. She's a wonderful girl, and you two seem so happy together. If the Volturi are watching, then the last thing we want to give them is a reason to doubt us."

Nodding hard, Alice put her cup down. "Yes, of course. I understand."

A fresh smile on her face, Esme touched her daughter's cheek, cupping the girl's chin in her hand. "That's my girl," she whispered, and then went to the living room to sit with her son.


	24. Chapter 24

Alice had kept her distance when she and Bella first met. In fact, she was fairly sure she was on the best behavior she could've possibly been. She smiled and laughed and nodded and was her jolly own self while Edward preened and pawned off his new girlfriend to the rest of the world. When he brought Bella to the house for the first time, she gave the human a hug of appropriate length and did her best not to take a breath too deeply, even though Bella's scent tickled her nose and made the unreliable thump of her heart sing faster. Alice pulled away after a time and looked to the faces of her family, but nobody seemed to have noticed her reaction.

After Bella's birthday party, Alice wandered the house in her little black dress, doing quiet laps of the scene, now pristine and tidy after Jasper's outburst. She pictured the blood on Bella's arm and how close she'd come—they'd all come—to losing their tightly held control. Wrapping her arms around herself, Alice tiptoed down the hall until she came upon Rosalie's room, the door open to a warm interior where her "sister" sat at her vanity, combing her long hair over her shoulder.

Rosalie looked up when she noticed. "What's wrong?" she asked, her voice soft.

Alice gave her a small smile and walked into the room, placing a hand on each of Rosalie's shoulders and her chin atop Rosalie's head. "What do you think of Bella?" she whispered, watching Rosalie clean her brush in the mirror.

Rosalie smirked, her dark eyes glinting. "You know what I think of her."

"Is she really so bad in your mind?" Alice asked, wrapping her arms around her sister's shoulders.

Shaking her head, Rosalie turned so that they didn't have to look in the mirror to see one another. "What's this about, Alice?"

Letting go, Alice stood back and folded her hands behind her. She felt the end of the bed railing brush her palm. "Nothing, I was just curious."

Rosalie gave her a once-over and then nodded. Standing, she touched Alice's cheek with the tips of her fingers. "Don't let her get to you," she whispered, moving to her tall wardrobe.

Alice stopped breathing for a second before disappearing from the room.

For the next few days, she contented herself with being close to, but not as close with, Bella. Edward kept his distance, but that didn't mean she had and and she took every opportunity to glance at their young friend whenever they passed by the school. On the day that he came home with an even deeper scowl on his face than she'd seen in a long time, Alice felt her whole body plummet.

"I broke it off," he said after the rest of the family gathered in their well-ordered and brilliantly lit living room. She thought she felt a ripple go through the family before wondering if it was just her own body trembling. "We need to leave town."

Alice watched in horror as Carlisle, ever the understanding protector of his family's lifestyle, nodded and told everyone to pack their bags. She left the room last, with Rosalie stalling on the stairs to watch her from above.

"Alice? Come on," she whispered.

Alice wrapped her arms around herself again, lowering herself to sit on the edge of the sofa. Her ears rang with Carlisle's words and she swallowed over and over again, trying to wash the dryness from her mouth. Blinking a couple of times, she stared at the floor until Rosalie appeared before her, eyes wide and searching and luminous gold.

"Alice," Rosalie whispered, lifting her fingertips to her sister's cheek as Alice's tears blurred her vision.

"Alice."

Jasper's voice broke the spell and both vampires looked up on his approach. He joined Rosalie in kneeling before her, his concern a mirror of their "sister's." "What's wrong?" he asked, looking from one woman to the other. "Are you having another vision?"

Alice shook her head and brushed them both off, standing. "I'm fine," she whispered, making her way to the stairs. Before she reached the landing, she heard Rosalie whisper, "I think she's sad about leaving Bella," and her heart caught in her chest.

Jasper took a second before he answered, "There's nothing to be done about that."

Clenching her jaw, Alice moved down the hall and stuffed her suitcases full of clothes, every movement an angry jerking and punching of fists. She tried not to feel the silk an satin and toulle as it crushed between her fingers. She tried not to think of Bella's face never lightening when Alice showed her wares to the girl. She tried not to think of everything they'd never do.

"I'm fine," she said when Jasper came in and touched her on the wrist.

She repeated this phrase when they fled the state and then when Edward fled the country. She repeated it until she woke, gasping, from a vision in which Bella flung herself off a cliff. With fumbling fingers, she relayed this news to her "brother," who hung up in time for the future to change. Bidding her family goodbye, she raced back to Forks at speeds unimaginable to humans. Her body felt alive with the news, both good and bad, and she didn't know what to do with all of it—rejoice that their Bella wasn't dead, or despair that their Edward was going to destroy himself with his outdated knowledge.

As fantastic as the reunion proved to be—Alice's heart beat harder at the sight of their disheveled friend—she forced herself from the attachment and explained what had to be done. As she could've predicted, Bella agreed to help and they raced to the car. Tension sang between them with the news until they reached the airport. Once on board, Bella slipped her hand into Alice's and gifted the vampire a sweet smile that didn't match the shadows deepening on Bella's face.

"I've missed you," she whispered.

Alice giggled, giddy with the feeling of their hands touching and of the slight relief coming from not thinking about Edward for a second. "Likewise," she said.

Business resumed in Italy, where Alice's heart scattered and shattered as they broke apart momentarily before reuniting in the Volturi castle. Despite her best efforts, she relented to Aro a future that she'd seen, months ago, when everything between Edward and Bella started happening. What she didn't show him was what she'd hidden behind it—a sadness at a secret kept so long despite how much she wished it away.

They returned to a lot of commotion caused by Bella's disappearance and Alice resumed her front, one that pained her as greatly as her worst visions did. It wasn't until Bella found herself in trouble and they holed her up at the house that Rosalie finally approached her.

"You've hardly spent two seconds away from that girl," her sister said while they popped soda cans in the kitchen and stuck popcorn in the microwave.

Alice shrugged and watched the soda fizzle as she poured it into glasses. "I've missed her is all," she said, but out of the corner of her eye, she could see Rosalie shaking her head.

"It's more than that. It's about what you asked me before. I've been thinking about it and I think you're right."

"What?" Alice asked. Her body stiffened and she had to put the soda can down or risk dropping it.

"You like her, don't you?"

For a moment, the air seemed to suck itself out of the room into a vacuous hole. When it returned, Alice burst out laughing. Her mirth helped hide the tremor in her body.

"What's so funny?" Rosalie asked, her face souring.

Alice ran down a mental list of lies before she shook her head and her laughter turned to tears. "I don't know," she whispered and hid her face in her hands. "It's so impossible."

Arms wound their way around her shoulders until Alice calmed. "That's what we thought about a lot of things before we became vampires," Rosalie whispered.

"But the future—"

"Is uncertain. You're proof of this. Now go talk to her," Rosalie said, stepping back and sliding over to the counter. She handed Alice a paper towel. "I'll watch the popcorn."

Alice went back into the living room where Bella sat watching the movie with glazed eyes, looking up when the vampire resumed her seat. "Hey, I was wondering where you went," she said, throwing a corner of the blanket onto Alice and nodding at the screen. "Lola just met up with Daniel and they're going to a club to meet Grayson and Jean. I think Lola has a crush on Jean, though, so that's why she's so interested in having this get-together."

Nodding, Alice slipped under the blanket and tried to pay attention to the movie, but her eyes kept roaming back to Bella's face, the human's soft smile growing every time something good happened to one of the characters. In the kitchen, she heard Rosalie bustling about and the silence told her that the popcorn had long stopped cooking. What Rosalie was waiting for in returning to the living room could've been anyone's guess, but Alice thought she knew. Taking a deep breath, Alice stared pointedly at Bella's face.

"Can I tell you something?" she asked.

Bella blinked and looked at Alice, her smile slight and tugging at the corners of her lips. "Yeah, sure. What's up?"

Alice studied her friend for another second, then swallowed hard. "Promise you won't get mad?"

Bella's brow dipped, but the smile stayed. "O-kay?"

Biting her lip, Alice clenched her fingers beneath the blanket and tried to keep her eyes on Bella's. "I really like you."

Bella gave a small laugh. "I really like you, too," she said.

Alice's heart dropped and she shook her head as the words started pouring out of Bella's mouth. "No, I mean, I really like you—as more than a friend."

Silence fell between them as Bella held Alice's stare, her mouth closing, but her smile never going away. Alice tried not to think about the silence in the kitchen that matched the one in the living room with them, or about how Rosalie was listening in. She tried not to think about the stillness she now felt in her body, with the weight of her secret in the air and the pressures of never telling her friend how she felt hovering over her.

"Oh wow," Bella whispered. The glazed look in her eyes cleared and she studied Alice's face with an intensity that even took Alice by surprise. "I mean, you're serious? You're not just fooling with me?"

Alice frowned and shook her head. "Why would I fool with something like this?"

Bella's smile wavered. "Because of the future you saw. Back in Italy?"

If Alice's heart had a beat, it would've stilled. "The future's never certain."

She waited for a long time for Bella to speak. The human's lip quivered and her eyes filled with soft tears that she pressed away with the first knuckle of her finger. At the sight of those tears, Alice felt her whole body flushing with heat and she put her hands to her mouth.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to upset you," she said.

Bella waved a hand, though, the corners of her mouth quivering as she smiled. "You didn't. That's just it. Believe it or not, this is the best news I've heard in my life."

Alice's breath caught in her throat. "What?"

Blinking back more tears, Bella stared her in the eyes until Alice thought that she would melt beneath her friend's gaze. "All this time, I thought it was Edward I was attracted to. He was the one who sought me out and tried to involve me in everything and I'd thought that was great," she said, chewing on her nail.

Still hardly able to breathe, Alice studied her friend. "Except?" she whispered.

Dropping her hand, Bella shrugged. "Except—I don't know. He was stalking me, wasn't he? And yeah, it felt nice to have someone pay attention and everything, but something just wasn't right. Sure, I wanted to be safe, but I also wanted to have fun and that's not something he believes very much in. I thought that was what love was: having someone who made you feel safe." She shrugged again.

Alice shook her head. "I'm still not understanding."

Bella gave her a small smile. "You don't do what he does. You believe I'm capable of more than that. You want me to get out and try new things. You want me to feel safe, but you don't want to stifle me. You love me because I'm stubborn and because I'm reserved. And I love you because you let me be who I am, but you don't let me box myself in and you won't box me in, either. You're happy to see me and you don't let your fears rule your actions."

Running a hand over her hair, Alice frowned. "Are you trying to say what I think you're saying?"

For the first time, Bella laughed. Her head fell back and her mouth gaped and her shoulders shook and the sound of brilliant mirth filled the room. Alice watched with incredulity as her friend laughed, trying to decide if it was at or with her. After a few beats, Bella wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Yes, I am. I'm sorry for being so obtuse," she said and leaned over. Their lips met softly, just as their hands did where they sought one another out beneath the heavy blanket shared between them. It only lasted for a second or two, but the second felt like a lifetime to Alice, and that—she believed—was saying something.

"What are you going to tell Edward?" Alice whispered when Bella broke the kiss, leaving only an inch of space between them.

The corner of Bella's mouth quirked. "The same thing you're going to tell Jasper: the truth."

Alice bit her lip. "Do you think he'll be okay?"

Sighing, Bella glanced at the TV. Lola and Jean sat together, hands clasped, with Lola resting her head on Jean's shoulder as the credits rolled by and filled their background of pink and gold sunset across a beach with black-lettered names and titles. "If he's a man of his word, yes," she said, twining her fingers with Alice's until the heat of her palm warmed the vampire's icy touch to lukewarm temperatures. "And I think we will be, too."

A great whoop came from the kitchen and both human and vampire looked over to see Rosalie applauding in the kitchen, a broad smile on her face and her eyes glittering as she studied the two of them. "About damn time already," she called, disappearing into the room behind her. When she emerged again, she carried popcorn loaded with butter that she settled between them while she flopped onto the end of the couch. "Now who's hungry?"

Alice stayed with Jasper when he and the others returned after the sleepover. She kept Bella out of the corner of her eye, but she didn't have to watch her friend and lover to know what was going to happen with her and Edward. In her dream-state, a coma-like resting place where Alice went every night when the humans slept and where she chose to go when Bella finally fell into a fitful slumber, she saw. She saw long visions of Bella and Edward staying together. They sat in places of light and beauty, places very like the ones Edward had taken Bella to while they courted.

Seeing these places and knowing—or believing she knew—what would happen while they were there broke her heart a bit. She bit her lip and held Jasper's hand tighter, only to realize what she was doing and was about to do and relinquished her hold.

At one point during the day, Jasper touched her cheek. She gasped, waiting to feel him healing her troubled stirring of emotions, but it didn't happen. She didn't feel anything change. She only felt her heart grow heavy as she stared up into his face, his brow low over his eyes and his golden eyes searching hers. For a moment, she wished he wouldn't looked at her that way. She wished, more than anything, that he would already know and she wouldn't have to tell him.

"You're troubled. Why? What's wrong?" he asked, as she'd known he would.

Alice bit her lip again and touched the wrist of the hand touching her cheek. She watched him lean down a few inches and touch his nose to hers.

"Do you need my help?" he whispered.

A tear rose to Alice's eyes and she shook her head, smiling softly, though her lips trembled. His eyes stayed on hers. "I have something to tell you and I'm not sure you'll like it," she said.

The concern in his eyes flashed and grew wary. She felt the hand holding her cheek slide back into her hair to cradle the place where her skull and neck met, his fingertips massaging the small area there. Alice closed her eyes and let him go on, but she pressed her hands to her chest, as if she could hold back her breaking heart.

"Tell me?" he whispered.

Opening her eyes, Alice held the image of his face for as long as she could: his hair rolling around his ears in gentle curls, his eyes large and expressive with concern, his lips a small slash against his mouth, his chin strong, and all of this directed at her. Taking a deep breath, she nodded. Her fingers curled around his arm and she pulled him away, letting his touch slide across her skin until the contact was broken and they were as separate as they had been when they first discovered one another.

"I'm in love with Bella," she said.

She watched the news sink in. Jasper stared at her for a long moment, his eyes flicking back and forth between hers. When she didn't give him a joking laugh or smile or in any way repeal the statement, his hands, which had been suspended in the space between them as if to reach for her again and bring her back to be comforted in his arms, fell to his sides with a flap. His brow stayed low, but his eyes filled with the same tears that Alice's were now graced with.

"How?" he whispered, not trying to mask the hurt in his voice.

Taking another deep, rattling breath, Alice dropped her shoulders and stood up straighter. "I'm afraid I only just admitted having feelings for her the other night. I realized there was something special about her when we first met her, but I wasn't sure why. I knew why Edward liked her, but I didn't have any idea that I would feel the same way. She was just—incredibly important to me for a long time."

Jasper nodded, but he fell back a step. "Like a sister, you said."

Alice nodded back, but there was a weight in her nod that didn't exist in his. "I thought so. And then the birthday party happened, and we were all so afraid. I realized that night that I wasn't afraid of what would happen if any of us lost control, only that I was afraid of what would happen to her. When we left town, I felt the separation between myself and her as if it were a gulf between two parallel lines—a place I could long to see, a distance I could desire to cross. But when we left, I knew it wasn't something we could just go back to." She gave a small, humorless laugh. "The reason parallel lines are parallel is because they never touch. That was how I felt with her this whole time."

"As if you couldn't ever touch," Jasper said.

Alice nodded again, running the pad of her thumb over the knuckles of her opposite hand as she spoke. "Then I had visions—first the one about Bella and then the one about Edward. When I had the first one, my heart shattered. I could feel everything collapsing around me. When I discovered that she was alive, and then that Edward was going to kill himself because he didn't know—"

"You saw an opportunity," Jasper said, a small smile lifting his cheeks, but not meeting his eyes.

"I needed to go back to her. As awful as it sounds, Edward's decision to die allowed me to see her again. We rescued her and brought her back and rescued Edward, but the feelings didn't go away when we were all reunited again. By that time, they'd intensified, and I—" Alice choked, her eyes filling with new tears. She clenched her hands and swallowed the soft sob that rose in her throat.

"You couldn't bear it anymore," Jasper whispered. She heard him close the distance between them before his arms wrapped themselves around her shoulders and he pulled her close to his chest.

"I'm sorry," she whispered into his shoulder as her body trembled. She felt the press of his lips to her hair and his square hand up and down her back in slow, comforting circles. Everything inside her quieted, but she knew it wasn't because of his power. Jasper had a most comforting presence. She wasn't sure what she would do without it. "I'm sorry, but I can't help it. Bella—she brings out the best in me, and I know—I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I bring something good out of her. I see it every time we're together."

She felt him nod against her hair. With a final squeeze, he pulled back. Twin streaks of tears ran down his cheeks, but he had a soft smile on his face and his grip on her shoulders was bracing.

"I wish you both the best of luck," he whispered. Leaning over, he pressed his lips to her forehead and then stepped back so that neither of them touched the other. They regarded each other for a long time before he turned towards the door. Alice turned around just as he called out to her one last time.

"I'll always love you," Jasper said.

Alice smiled and nodded, both gestures of understanding, if not enthusiasm. He mirrored her actions, then disappeared into the hall, taking the weight of the world from her shoulders.

She didn't see Bella until later that night. Alice idled in her car—a yellow one, just like from Italy, so that Bella would know who it was—in front of the Swan house, drumming her nails on the steering wheel and scanning the darkness for her lover. If her heart had been working properly, it would've been racing.

At long last, Bella emerged from the woods behind her house. She worried her coat over her hands and her lips quivered at the ground, their corners rising and falling in staccato beats. Alice's good vision helped her to see the emotions at war on her friend's face, and she couldn't help but feel more of a kinship to her friend than ever before.

The troubled looks disappeared when Bella lifted her eyes and caught sight of Alice's car under the streetlight. Alice smiled, waving through the windshield. With a glance at her house, Bella hurried over, sliding into the passenger's side.

"Hey," she whispered, leaning over the center console to press a soft kiss to Alice's lips. They lingered for a second too long, drawing all conversation to a stop, and Alice could feel the levels of urgency in the car lowering to almost non-existent levels.

"Hey yourself," Alice whispered when they pulled back again. She tried not to touch her mouth, tried not to think about how, for all those years, Jasper's kisses had been what she'd called "electrifying." Now that she and Bella had shared two touches, Jasper's lips were sweet and kind and definitely loving, but that was all they'd been. For the millionth time since making this discovery the night before, Alice turned her revelation over in her mind before putting it away and sitting up. "Did you tell him?"

Bella took Alice's hand, running her thumb over the back of Alice's knuckles. She nodded once.

Alice bit her lip. "How did he take it?"

"The way I thought he would. He said that this is what I wanted, so he was true to his promise and he said we can stop seeing each other."

Shaking her head, Alice turned to stare out the windshield again. "He's good—when he wants to be. I thought for sure that—"

"We'd have problems?" Bella asked and laughed. Her grip tightened on Alice's hand for a moment. "Yeah, I thought so, too. It almost makes me feel bad."

Alice smiled at her and leaned her forehead against her lover's. "Almost," she said. A second later, she groaned. "Why does telling the truth have to be so hard?"

Bella's smile fell a bit. "I wish I knew. You haven't told Esme and Carlisle yet, have you?"

Alice sat up, shaking her head. "Not yet, no. I'm guessing you haven't told Charlie?"

Laughing, Bella studied her lover. "What do you think?" she asked, and then sat back, pressing her head into the headrest as she grit her teeth and covered her eyes with her free hand. "I feel like—like he won't get it. Or something. And I know Jake won't. I mean, he didn't even like Edward, so why would he like you?"

Alice bit her lip and nodded at her lap. In her peripheral, she saw Bella sit up, her jaw slack.

"Oh. No, that's not…oh, go, that sounded awful. Alice, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean—"

"No, it's okay," Alice said, trying to will the tears back into her eyes and loosen her grip on Bella's fingers. "I get it. My kind versus their kind and all." She could still feel her heart falling. When Bella kissed her on the cheek, she leaned into it, lifted their twined hands to kiss the back of Bella's.

"Look at me," Bella whispered.

Alice raised her head, studying the long trails of black and brown that made up Bella's eye color. The intensity of her lover's stare sent warmth she hadn't felt in years back through her limbs. More than anything, she wished she could snapshot this moment in time, with this exact feeling intact and attached, so that it would return to her just this way in her memory, instead of being a poor replication of half-remembered thoughts, the way pictures were.

"I'm going to tell Charlie. Tonight. As soon as I get inside, in fact," she said, pressing her lips to Alice's fingers. Alice smiled at her, at the softness of Bella's mouth. She wasn't sure she ever wanted to be away from it. When Bella lifted her head again, the intensity continued. "I'll tell Charlie and you'll tell Carlisle and Esme. Then we'll both talk to Jake in the morning."

For once, Alice just nodded and whispered, "Okay." A thrill went through her at the sight and sound of Bella taking charge. She knew the girl-woman had been prone to letting herself be led around, but now, with this new willingness she could see before her in her lover, she wondered if that had been a result of the girl-woman's own discomfort. Alice could feel her bubbliness settling down the more comfortable she became.

Perhaps, she wondered, the same can be said about Bella's desire to lead.

She watched Bella smile, a wide grin that softened her face and made her glow. They shared a final, lingering kiss and then Alice watched her lover go inside before Alice herself turned to home. She could already see Carlisle and Esme standing in the living room, where every major discussion was held, and she pushed her shoulders back.

Whatever happens, she told herself, you know who you are and what you can do. Whatever happens, things will be okay.

Alice nodded to herself, repeating this over in her head until she pulled into the driveway and made her way back into the house. She tried not to hear the silences, tried not to think about the orderliness of everything. She felt that she held a pebble in her hand, suspended over a long and unmoving and mirror-like pond, and that she was poised to drop it, breaking the gleaming surface of a glamorous world whose traditions ran as deeply as the knife edges of their silverware were sharp.

She found Carlisle and Esme sitting in Carlisle's study. The sight warmed something deep in Alice's otherwise lifeless heart. Her mother's legs, tucked under her body, peeked out from the knee-length hem of her long skirt and her pink-polished toes curled into the upholstery of the sitting chair. She cradled a book in the crook of her am and only once did she flip the page, though Alice knew she could read much faster than that.

Her father, on the other hand, sat behind a thin laptop, a small furrow in his brow and his chin in his hand. She could see his fingers sliding the mouse around in the gray light opposite his lamp. His back hunched and she caught herself staring at his posture, something so strange from a father who held himself in high regard and maintained an iron-straight back through even the most grueling struggles.

Two raps of Alice's knuckles on the door drew their attention to her. Esme closed the book, its snap gentle.

"Sweetheart, what is it?" Esme asked.

Alice twined her hands in front of her and stepped into the room. She watched Carlisle sit up into his signature flat-back posture, resting his hands on his knees while he trained his eyes on her. "I have something to tell you both."

"We're listening," Carlisle said as Esme unfurled herself from the chair.

Alice nodded. She took a deep breath and frowned at her hands. "I'm—" She broke off with a small laugh that she could feel. "This is going to sound ridiculous."

"Nothing's ridiculous, sweetheart," Esme said. When Alice looked up, her mother smiled a bit more and nodded to Carlisle. Alice wondered if she was referring to the fact that they were all vampires, but the notion sounded so silly that she couldn't bring herself to say it.

Taking another step into the room, Alice nodded again and pressed her hands to her thighs, running her fingers over the scratchy, beautiful material of her tailored dress pants. For a second, she thought about what Jasper had said when she'd bought them, about how he'd giggled a little at first and said they reminded him of the pants Carlisle wore to work. When he'd seen how serious she was about them, he'd clammed up. Still, it had bothered her.

Bella never said anything about my pants, she reminded herself. She just—accepts me.

"Alice?"

Alice looked up to see Carlisle staring at her intently and it occurred to her that she'd been silent for too long. "I'm in love—with Bella."

The words dropped into the room, falling from her lips one after the other. They started out small, like puffs of hot breath steaming the cold winter air, and then, like those breaths, grew larger. They grew until they took on their own weight and plopped to the ground in front of her. All five of them, bricks that she expelled from her body, indenting the plush cream carpet that Carlisle had had installed after Bella's party because he liked the feel of softness beneath his feet and—well, because they weren't likely to spill anything there.

Alice watched her parents from beneath her eyelashes as she imagined her words sitting on the ground. She wondered what they would look like if she saw them—would they be red? Would they be dripping and runny? Would they stain the ground? What would they be made of—wood? Breath? Pieces of Alice? Would they be large chunks of her body, torn from her lungs the way her air had been when she had been bitten at the institution by her vampire friend?

"Please say something," she whispered as she imagined her words. The plea felt heavy, though she felt lighter, much mores than she'd anticipated. If the words really had existed in tangible form, then she now believed that they would've been made of her. How else would she manage to feel so much relief at their existence in the open, at their expulsion from her skin and sweat and mind when she spoke them?

Esme stood up and padded over so softly that Alice almost didn't hear her until her mother put her arms around her foster daughter's shoulders. Shoulders shaking, Alice held her breath while Esme pressed soft kisses onto her foster daughter's temple and hair. Her arms squeezed Alice's shoulders tight until another set of arms joined them. On Alice's opposite cheek, Carlisle pressed a kiss of equally feather-like weight and, for a long moment, she stood between her foster parents in something of a sandwich-like arrangement. It made her feel like a child again, the kind she'd longed to be—loved and held tight by her parents as they kissed her tears and murmured cares in her ear. The kind whose parents didn't fear them, but nodded and pushed those who could harm their children out of the way.

"It's okay," Esme whispered. Her arms tightened around Alice's shoulders. Carlisle pressed another kiss to Alice's cheek and stepped back. "It's perfectly okay."

Alice felt tears slipping down her cheeks, but she didn't know if they were her own or if they belonged to her mother. She wound her arms around Esme's waist and squeezed with all her might while Alice cried and Esme stroked her daughter's hair.

After they had stood that way for a few minutes, Alice finally relaxed her hold and stepped back. They laughed a bit at the tears on each other's faces as they wiped their cheeks and rubbed the wet from their eyes.

"You've told Jasper already?" Carlisle asked, his melodic voice breaking the quiet.

Alice nodded. "Yes, and she's told Edward. Bella has."

He returned the nod, sticking his hands in his pockets as his smile softened his face. "I'm very happy for the two of you. It seems like you know what you want and that you're going for it."

Blushing, Alice ducked her head, twining her fingers again. "Thank you, Carlisle."

"Has Bella told her family?" Esme asked, brushing her hands over her skirt.

"She will be tonight. To be fair, I'm not sure how they're going to take it. Charlie seems to like me well enough, but—"

"Small town folk aren't known for being particularly accepting," Carlisle said with a grimace. A small hush fell over the room as they ruminated over this. Carlisle touched the back of his head and then put his hands back in his pockets. "I've known Charlie for a good while, though. He's a fantastic policeman and an equally fantastic father. I think he'd understand. If I know him, then he's only going to want the best for his daughter."

Alice smiled a little, but she couldn't feel the action in her cheeks the way she did when smiles came easily. Carlisle laughed a little bit and took a few steps forward so that she could see the light in his golden eyes.

"What I mean to say is that, if he likes you, Alice, then I don't think you have anything to be worried about."

She waited outside Bella's house the following morning, idling in the yellow car and watching the midmorning sun play off the windows along the sides of the house. It didn't take long for her lover to emerge, bundled to her ears in a thick brown coat and fuzzy blue mittens with matching ear protectors.

"So?" Alice asked the moment Bella slipped into the seat beside her.

Bella blinked at her before squeezing her eyes shut and laughing. "Oh, right. Sorry, I forgot what you were asking for a second. He, um…I don't think he believes me, to be honest. He kept saying, "But what about Edward?" I mean, that seems really stupid right now, considering how much my dad hated him, but…" She shook her head and looked at her hands where they sat in her lap.

Alice gave her a small half-smile that Bella didn't see. "Well, how does he feel about the fact that I'm—you know."

Bella shrugged and Alice could feel her heart clenching. "He's not bothered by it. I mean, he likes you. It's like I said, though. I don't think he believes me."

As they spoke, Alice saw the tremor in her lover's shoulders. It was only a slight shaking, but it seemed to consume Bella's whole body the longer Alice stared. Without further ado, she caught the glimmer of a tear slip from between her lover's eyelashes and drip down the soft curve of her cheek. "Oh, Bella-Bee," Alice whispered and wrapped her arms around Bella's shoulders.

Hiccuping sobs filled the car as Alice tried to cradle her lover without making the position any more awkward for either of them over the console. She ran her cold fingertips across Bella's scalp and brushed out Bella's hair with her soft-rounded nails until the sobs quieted and the easy sound of their breathing replaced it.

"I just wish he'd believe me, you know? I wish he'd understand. I mean, I'm not sure who else I could tell. I cold try my mom, but I think this is something that would be a bit beyond her."

Alice nodded into Bella's hair, smoothing a stray lock between her fingers. Her lover had often complained in the past about how little she enjoyed beauty products and getting all gussied up, but Alice had always known that Bella didn't ever have much to change to become glamorous. Her hair already ran down her shoulders in shiny cascades, her skin was already clear, and her features were already shapely. She just didn't do anything with what she had, and even though Alice was loathe to admit it, part of her liked seeing Bella without the makeup on, the way things were now—minus the tears. The thought brought her back to the present.

"Do you think you want to tell Jacob still?" she asked. "I mean, you know how he reacted when you and Edward were together."

Bella sighed and pushed her head harder against Alice's shoulder. "I think it'll just disappoint him either way. With Edward, it was a pissing contest. With you, he'll just have no chance and he'll realize this." She sat up and Alice saw a small, sardonic smile speared over her face. "He thinks I'm good for him. He thinks being with me will solve all of his problems, and that because we've been together as friends for such a long time, we're meant to be."

"But that's not the case, is it," Alice whispered, studying Bella's expression as she connected the dots.

Bella shook her head. "It's not the case at all. I'm not good for him. I love him, but like a brother. I don't think he ever got that. I don't think dad ever did, either." She shrugged. "Maybe that's why he was so adamant to say that he thinks this is a phase."

Alice's eyes widened. "He said that?"

Bella nodded, crossing her arms and sinking low in her chair. Alice glanced at the house, resting her arm across the steering wheel and leaning her whole body forward so that she could examine the windows without craning her neck. "It's amazing what parents will say when they don't want to hear what you're telling them. I mean, who was it who said, "Most parents will do anything for their children, except let them be themselves"?"

Alice shook her head. "I have no idea."

"Well, that's kind of how this is. I mean, I knew he was old fashioned when I walked into this, but I didn't know just how much."

A few seconds passed and then Alice put her hand on Bella's knee. Their eyes met. "It could just be that he's worried about what's going to happen next. I mean, things were super rocky with Edward. I'm not saying they'll be that way with me, but you never know." She could hear the uncertainty in her own voice.

Smiling a bit, Bella covered Alice's hand with her own and Alice couldn't help taking it, enjoying the feeling of the fuzz on Bella's glove under her fingers. "Edward was very different. He was afraid of me—afraid of me breaking, of me exerting myself, of me doing anything without him." She paused, considering. "Jacob's that way, too, sometimes, now that I think about it. I'm not sure if it's a guy thing, or a dominance thing, or what. That's not how you are, though. You worry, but you're not overbearing about it."

Sitting up, Alice reached for her seatbelt. "Does that mean you still want to tell Jacob?"

Bella nodded. "I'm not asking him to like it and I'm not asking him to be happy about it, but it's my choice. He's just going to have to understand what his role in my life is. Start the car."

Alice did. They rolled down the street in muted quiet, the car blocking out the shushing winds and the belting traffic noises. Every so often, Alice would glance over at her lover and wish, selfishly, to know what Bella was thinking, if only because she didn't know what to. Just as what was happening felt right, it also felt completely out of her hands and she had to breathe deeply in order to give herself even a false sense of control amidst what the universe had been doing.

Alice wrinkled her nose when they arrived at Jake's house. She and her siblings had, for the most part, avoided this part of town out of necessity. With the treaty in place, she knew she would be just as welcome as the Black Plague in these parts. For all she knew, they considered her kind to be the Plague. Clenching her jaw, Alice pulled into the driveway beside Jake's house. The boy himself appeared not a few seconds later and Alice threw the car into park before she lost her nerve.

Jake wore a stormy expression, his hands balled into fists and his ridiculous muscle shirt hugging his body in, admittedly, all the right places. Once, Alice might've felt intimidated.

That had been years ago.

Now, she just wanted to roll her eyes. Looking at Bella, she found her lover staring at Jake the way Alice had. The girl's jaw worked as she chewed her bottom lip, but the set of her brows—low over her eyes—told Alice that the girl was pretty much ready. She hadn't changed her mind and they wouldn't be going back.

Jake made it halfway to the car when Bella hopped out, but Alice didn't need to follow to hear what was begin said.

"Hey," Bella called.

Jake stopped walking, but his eyes were on Alice, boring their way into the back of her head as if they could find whatever crazy notion had dragged a vampire all the way out onto the res. "What's this bloodsucker doing here?" he asked, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. Alice studied the tension in the shapeshifter's bare arms and wondered how much of a struggle it was for him to hold back.

"Jake, I wanted to talk to you," Bella said, plowing on with the conversation. Although Alice still held Jake's eyes, meeting his challenge the way few others had, she could see Bella's fingers working her jacket sleeves over her hands.

"First answer my question," Jake said, turning from Alice for the first time since arriving outside. Her hands gripped the wheel as she watched him walk around the car and close the distance between himself and Bella. "What—is this bloodsucker—doing here?"

Alice held her breath. She felt as if she was watching a movie and all she wanted to do was jump into the middle of things, protecting Bella and pushing Jake back so a safer distance from the both of them. This wasn't her burden, though. As much as she wanted to, she knew this wasn't a fight she could get involved in and she would just have to wait it out. Her heart jumped into her throat when she saw Bella straighten, her arms falling to her sides and her chin rising as she met Jake's glare straight-on.

"This bloodsucker? First of all, this bloodsucker has a name. It's Alice."

In the car, Alice blushed.

"Second of all, you've already met her, so you should have the courtesy and respect to call her by her name because she'd do the same for you."

Alice's blush deepened.

"Third of all…she's here to support me."

Jake turned from one face to the other before settling on Bella again. "Support you?"

Bella nodded slowly, but her face had softened and Alice knew she wasn't being cruel or sarcastic. If anything, she was trying to gently lead her friend to the conclusion. "I need to talk to you. It's something about me."

Alice just heard Jake scoff and mutter, "Isn't it always?" indignation rose up in her chest, but when she saw Bella nod and stick her hands in her jacket pockets, the feeling sank away into Alice's chest.

"Seems that way, doesn't it?" Bella said. The surprise Alice felt mirrored itself on Jake's face and for a second, she realized it made them something like kin.

Jake shrugged, momentarily taken off his guard. "So, what is it?"

"Think about it. Think long and hard about who's here and who's not. You're a smart boy, Jake. I know you can figure this out easily."

Again, Alice found herself admiring Bella's sympathy, her patience. The words could've been said with so much sarcasm—Alice would've said them with sarcasm, if she'd been in Bella's place—but she spoke like a counselor to a self-deprecating child.

Jake glanced back at the car, his frown deepening, but just as he did, he turned back to Bella again, his jaw dropping. "Where's Edward?"

Bella gave him a small smile. "He's not here."

"Why not? Why did you bring Alice here instead of him?"

Taking her hands from her pockets, Bella stepped forward. Alice held her breath as she watched the emotions play across Bella's face and the confusion settle into the creases of Jake's. "Because we broke up," she said. For a moment, Jake's face opened as if a whole new day had dawned. Alice felt her heart clench, a reaction that surprised her, but one she let herself feel for him. "We broke up because I'm not in love with him. I'm in love with Alice."

Alice's breath caught in her chest as she watched their expressions. Her hands tightened and loosened on the the steering wheel while Bella kept her face neutral, but not unkind. Jake didn't seem to know what he wanted to feel—the joyous expression gradually dropped while she spoke and his brow sank lower over his eyes. The rest of his body remained still, as if he'd momentarily forgotten about it.

"You're—" he whispered.

"In love," Bella said.

He nodded once. "With—"

"Alice." She returned the nod and put her hands back into her pockets.

He shook his head, turning his attention away from Bella and Alice and the car to stare at the woods behind his house. The tension in his shoulders dropped until she wouldn't have known, just by looking at him, that he'd gotten what seemed to be universe-inverting news. If she hadn't been following the conversation, she would've said he was just looking at something in the distance.

He shook his head a second time as he turned back to them. "When did this happen? You were so—obsessed over Edward, I thought?"

Bella nodded at the ground. "You're right. I was obsessed over him. I think that's what occurred to me, though. I wasn't really in love with him. I mean, he mattered, obviously, because when he left, it broke my heart." She pursed her lips.

"And?" Jake asked, a tone of impatience to his voice.

"And it really wasn't ever him, was it? It was the person waiting in the shadows, helping me, but not leading me around like a pet on a leash." She looked up and met Alice's eyes. Alice gave her a small smile and found it mirrored on her lover's face.

"Obsession isn't love," Bella said, still holding Alice's gaze. "Trying to help someone become a better person and being there for them is what makes love possible. Putting aside yourself for the people you care about—that's what it is." She turned back to Jake and Alice caught a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"That's what I don't think Edward understood and it's certainly not something I knew when I was with him."

Alice watched her reach out and slide her hand into Jake's. She watched his jaw harden and his back straighten.

"It's what I'm going to be better at now," Bella whispered.

After a few minutes of trying to figure out how he felt about everything, Jake let them inside. Alice scrunched her nose when she crossed the threshold, an expression she hid behind her hand as best she could so that she wouldn't insult Bella. Part of her wondered if she was supposed to be worried about insulting Jake, too, but when he didn't even offer her a chair at the kitchen table, she put that concern aside. Instead, she took in her surroundings while he offered Bella drinks and food that he probably didn't have very much of, if the threadbare furnishings and decorations were any indication.

Everything about the place was rustic and run-down. Alice would've imagined that a particularly spoiled three-year-old had been living in the house with the way the place had been used and abused within an inch of its life. The smell, too. She could hardly stand it. Opening her mouth a tad, she tried not to taste the air as it slithered over her tongue. Breathing wasn't a necessity, no, but she knew how it might look if she didn't. Given her heart didn't send a pulse through her body to alert anyone of her impossible animation, she figured it was the least she could do to keep the humans—or, human and shapeshifter—comfortable.

"Do you want anything?"

Alice started and turned to find Bella staring at her. Jake, who had half of his body in the fridge, froze, a gesture so subtle that Bella would've missed it if she'd been looking at him. Alice shook her head.

"No, thank you. I'm fine."

From the fridge, Jake snorted and pulled out a carton of orange juice, taking a swig straight from the bottle and then setting it on the table. "No, I don't imagine you eat anything, do you?" he asked.

Alice stuck her hands in her pockets, but she didn't stop staring him down for even a second. "Not human food, no."

He nodded and broke the gaze, turning instead to his hands. A long pause filled the air and Alice felt a blush creeping over her cheeks.

Bella shifted, a movement that broke the silence in the room. "Do you want to sit down?" she asked Alice.

The vampire almost smiled when she caught Jake's cheeks turning red. Part of her wondered if that was Bella's way of calling him out on his rudeness, but the other, larger part of her knew that this was just Bella being polite. She'd never been anything but to Alice. "I'm fine, thank you," she repeated.

Another pause filled the room, but lasted for an even shorter time when Jake slapped his hands against the table. "So what do we do now?" he asked. "Why are you here? Just to tell me that you weren't going to be dating me anytime soon?"

The indignation Alice had felt towards him earlier rose up in her chest and she took a huge step forward. "This isn't all about you, you know," she snapped. Jake blinked and looked up at her with wide eyes, as if he was finally seeing the vampire standing in front of his face.

"Alice—" Bella whispered, but Alice held up her hand.

"No, Bella. This is ridiculous. None of this is about him and that's what he's turning it into," she said, never moving her eyes from Jake's head. When he didn't pick his head up, she said, "Look at me."

With visible reluctance, Jake sat back and stared at her, a careful, almost controlled look of boredom on his face. Something about it—possibly his apparent indifference and disregard for his crush's safety, she couldn't tell which—set her off and she jabbed a finger at his chest.

"I know you don't like me or my kind. I know you'd rather see Bella dead than with the likes of us." When his face opened up, Alice shook her head. "Don't, for one second, think I don't know what you're thinking. Believe me, I've lived with people who've wanted me dead long before I was ever a vampire. Being clairvoyant in the early 1900s does that to a person. But this _isn't_ the 1900s. This isn't a time where it's acceptable to just hate on everyone for no reason. You don't have to like me, but you do have to respect what I'm doing."

Jake's jaw snapped shut and he leaned forward, resting his fists on the table with a gleam in his eye that she could've sworn glinted green when the light coming through the kitchen window hit it just right. "Oh yeah? And what _exactly _would that be?" he whispered.

Alice bristled at the challenge in his voice, only to jump when she felt something touch her hand. Whipping her head around, she found Bella watching her with tenderness in her eyes. It was her hand that was touching Alice's, and the vampire could feel her lover's soft fingers running across her own. The touch soothed Alice in a way that the vampire had only thought possible around Jasper, and this realization startled her almost as much as her earlier declarations of love for the human had.

"It's okay," Bella whispered, her fingers gripping Alice's harder. "It's going to be okay. He's not going to know yet. You don't have to be angry with him."

"What don't I know?" Jake asked, reminding Alice that he was there. He stared between them, but the sarcastic and bitter tones to his voice had disappeared. Instead of anger and saccharine hospitality, alarm and confusion marred the angles of his face.

Bella turned to Alice and clenched her jaw. Her eyes spoke of worries and struggles that Alice wasn't entirely unfamiliar with, but the burden of the news that they were carrying could be seen so deeply within the human's soul that it seemed to be a wonder that Jake couldn't read it there. Bella's throat expanded as she swallowed and sat back, but Alice could feel Jake's tension rising, his concern and confusion mounting.

"What don't I know?" he asked again, stress in his voice.

Alice put a hand to her forehead and heaved a great sigh. "There's a war coming," she whispered.

"A _war_?!" Jake screamed and jumped to his feet. His chair went careening back, falling to the floor with a crash. "What kind of war?" he demanded.

"A war for Bella's life," Alice said, stepping forward so that she stood more in between him and Bella. "An army of vampires, mostly newborns, is being developed just outside Seattle. I don't know much about it outside of that, but I do know that we're keeping our eyes on the situation and it doesn't seem to be going away."

While Alice talked, Jake ran his hand over his jaw. The gesture momentarily distorted his mouth, but he turned around and began pacing towards the other end of the kitchen before Alice could say anything more. She shared a quick glance with Bella, whose eyes had gone wide and who also watched Jake with what Alice believed was increasing tension. The squeak of his shoes against the linoleum called their attention back to him. He glared at Bella.

"When the hell were you going to tell me about this?" he snapped, crossing back to the table in two long strides with his hands balled into fists at his sides.

Alice leapt in front of him, putting one hand out as if to touch his chest and hold him back. Jake stopped just in time and the vampire could almost feel her skin being scalded by the amount of heat coming off of his body. "Don't blame Bella for this. It's not her fault. We haven't told her much, either."

"Then why are you telling me if you haven't even told her?"

Alice scoffed and dropped her hand. "Are you serious? You care about her, too, right? Or was all that stuff just a bunch of lies because you don't have a girlfriend yet?"

Behind her, Alice heard Bella gasp. For a second, Jake's face fell. It hardened up again quickly, as if he'd never been surprised, the long crease between his brows deepening. He leaned over Alice and from the bottom of her peripheral vision, she could see his hand come up, pointing a threatening finger at Alice's chest.

"Don't—you dare—tell me I don't care about Bella," he whispered. They stood so close that Alice could smell the spearmint toothpaste on his breath, see the veins of brown color in his irises. She set her jaw and kept her back ramrod straight, not allowing herself to be intimidated by the likes of a shapeshifter.

"I wouldn't presume to believe it if you weren't acting like such a child," she said, her voice just as quiet. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but she hurried on. "I'm telling you because we're not going to be enough to tackle this on our own. All we know is that the threat is growing. We don't know when it will be here, only that the numbers are going to be bigger than we've seen since our coven was developed."

Alice glanced behind her at Bella. The human had gotten to her feet and was watching them both with concern in her eyes, but the expression softened when Alice offered her a smile. "Neither of us wants to see her hurt. We're going to need as many allies as we can afford," she said and turned back to Jake.

The shapeshifter backed up and stuck his hands in his pockets. He fell back to the wall, leaning up against it and turning his nose to his feet, nodding as he listened.

Shrugging, Alice stuck her hands in her pockets, too. "Will you help us?" she asked.

"I might have to talk to the pack," Jake said after a second of not speaking.

"Do whatever you have to do. It would be nice if we could have as many reinforcements on our side as possible."

He shook his head. "That's not what I meant."

Frowning, Alice crossed her arms over her chest and stuck her hip out to the side. "Then what?"

He looked up, his face blank. "I meant I'd have to talk to the pack about the fact that I want to go at this alone. I'll help. Not all of them, too."

"What?" Bella snapped at the same time Alice shouted, "Excuse me?"

A long, angry silence hovered between the three of them until it encompassed the kitchen. Alice could hear Bella breathing and tried to match the human's breath with her own, so that the sounds mingled and the room felt full. Without it, and with the incredible amount of empty rooms around them, the tiny house seemed cavernous and empty, something Alice didn't particularly like about the place. She wasn't sure how such a small cottage could seem so much bigger, and more intimidating, when no one was inside of it. Now, though, that was precisely the impression she was getting.

When Jake didn't explain, Alice scoffed and started to walk out of the room.

"This is suicide," she heard Bella say. It stopped Alice in her tracks and she stared out the frosted window on the front door to the hazy world outside, the green turning brown beneath the heat of the sun.

"I don't expect you to understand, Bella," she heard Jake whisper.

"Then help me try to. Because I don't want to see my best friend get himself killed. Why wouldn't you want to have the rest of the pack help. Is it because of Alice? Is it because of the other vampires? Is it pride—"

"I don't want Sam involved," he said, his vice so loud that it made the room ring.

Confused, Alice turned back to the room. She made to cross to where the shapeshifter stood, but Bella got there first, her hand finding Jake's shoulder. The gesture warmed Alice's heart, though she wished it was her own shoulder that Bella's hand had found instead of the shapeshifter's.

"Sometimes we have to do things that we don't like because we don't have much other choice. This territory," Bella said, gesturing to the house and the world outside, "is as much Sam's as it is yours. The vampires coming here won't care about the treaty. They won't care whose side you're on or whether or not you get along with each other. The only thing they'll care about is who's standing in their way. You're going to get hurt if you come at them alone. If we have more numbers, then we'll be better."

Alice watched Jake's jaw work as he mulled this over, but when he didn't say anything after five seconds, she threw up her hands. "This isn't going to work, Bella. He obviously has some sort of problem and it's not going to go away just because you ask him to put it aside. Maybe we should just go—"

"No," Jake snapped. He glared at Alice and his shoulders made their way up to his ears, making him look like a too-big kid trying to sit in a chair made for a five-year-old.

Alice raised her eyebrows. "So do we have to ask Sam on our own?"

"No."

Bella's hand shifted to his cheek and Jake looked up at her with shining eyes. "Does that mean you'll ask him for us?"

After a long, deep breath, Jake nodded. Sighing with relief, Alice started towards him. "Thank you so much—"

"I'm not doing it for you," Jake snapped, stopping her where she stood. His eyes softened and he looked at Bella. "I'm doing it for Bells."

Momentarily nonplussed, Alice watched the human press her forehead against his and then step back. "Thank you. I mean it," she said. She moved away from him just as he reached out to touch her cheek and Alice slid her fingers into Bella's hand. Jake didn't do anything to hide the wounded look on his face. "We'll be at the Cullen house, preparing. Come along whenever you're ready," Bella said.

Alice nodded at the shapeshifter and then let the human lead them both back to the car. Before she got inside, she pressed a kiss to Bella's lips and let the human's soft warmth seep into her body. "Thank you," she whispered.

Bella raised her eyebrows. "Don't thank me yet. You're going to have to pay for not telling me what was happening in Seattle."

The jab hurt and Alice felt her heart fall as she tightened her hand around her lover's. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to worry you."

"I appreciate the concern, but next time, I'd rather not go into the conversation half-blind."

Nodding, Alice pressed a second kiss to Bella's lips. "Understood."

As promised, Bella and Alice spent the afternoon at the Cullen house. The human sat in the living room with Esme and Rosalie, talking about what supplies they would need to relocate Bella to a safer location and how long it would take them to get everything together. In the kitchen down the hall from them, Carlisle, Emmett, Jasper, and Edward hovered around a series of phone numbers they'd procured from a place deep in Carlisle's desk. She could hear them scrolling through the names and speaking in hushed tones at opposite corners of the room while they got in contact with the other vampire clans with whom the Cullen family had found an alliance.

Alice watched them work from the hallway, listening to them murmuring while her thoughts turned inward. She longed to go into the living room and sit with Bella, but something kept her back and she couldn't See what it was, so instead, she thought back to their earlier meeting with Jacob. The looks on his face had torn her heart into ribbons, despite how desperately she'd wanted to put hatred for him in her heart. It would've made it easier if she could hate him, but she'd seen the heartbreak he'd felt when Bella had announced that she wasn't interested in men.

Yes, he'd been rude and misogynistic in his reaction. That couldn't be forgiven until he realized his error and apologized. She knew, however, that the words had been a defense mechanism. While she couldn't condone his poor choice of language and his unwillingness to accept the facts that were being laid bare before him, she could understand the hurt. She just couldn't ever imagine herself being so rude in her delivery of her disapproval.

The heat from her anger earlier in the day flared up again and she clenched her jaw to swallow it back. Just as she did, she heard Carlisle sign and put down the phone. Glancing into the kitchen, she saw him rub his eyes, then wipe his hands across his face.

"They're not coming," he whispered to the other boys. Jasper, Emmett, and Edward had all hung up their phones and either put them back into their pockets or slid them onto the onyx countertop. "The Denali coven doesn't want to get involved."

"Why?" Edward whispered.

"Because they're afraid and they don't think it will end well. If there's a war coming, they think the casualties will be enormous."

Alice rounded the corner until she stood in the kitchen with the other men. "They're right, though. If there's a war, then there's going to be some sort of bloodshed. What I'm worried about is what the Volturi are going to say. Do we know if they're aware of the situation? Are we going to get in more trouble?"

Even though all the eyes in the room were on her, as if they couldn't believe her intrusion, she stared at Carlisle, who nodded and covered his mouth with his hand.

"I can't say. Have you been keeping tabs on them at all?"

For a second, Alice grew red from the collar of her shirt to the top of her head. Emmett snorted at the sight of her coloring, but she rolled her eyes at him and then turned inward again.

Using her Sight, she projected her mind to Volterra, into the home and counsel of the Volturi. She could See them sitting around, maps spread on a long oak table between them, lit only by candlelight. They had anger in their eyes and tension in their faces. Aro spoke to the rest of the room, but though she couldn't hear what he was saying, she could read his lips and she saw "Seattle" fall from them twice. Slipping backwards, she fell into the kitchen again to find Jasper at her side, holding her arm the way he used to always do whenever she had a vision.

Gape-jawed, she stared at him, surprised. He had concern in his eyes, a concern that fluttered into his fingers—his cool, gentle, kind fingers that gripped her with the same cool tenderness that her hands used to brush his—but didn't warm her skin the way Bella's did. She wondered, briefly, if Bella would learn to catch Alice the way Jasper had done for so many years. She wondered if things would last that long.

As soon as the thought entered her head, she hoped they would. She hoped, more than anything, that she and Bella would last.

Calm rushed through her as Jasper's brows lifted and she gave him a grateful smile.

"Thank you," she said and turned back to the rest of the group. "They're aware. They have maps and I think they're interested in what's happening, but I'm not sure if they know about Bella's involvement, or if they're simply worried about what would happen with so many newborn vampires being in one area. I'll keep my eye on it, though."

Carlisle nodded and moved away from the table to press a hard kiss on Alice's forehead. "Thank you. That means a lot. If things are speeding up as quickly as I expect they are, then they'll be here shortly and we're going to have to meet them—both he newborns and the Volturi—in a matter of hours." He turned back to the rest of the room. "Get ready."

With complacent nods, the other men left the room and passed down to the other end of the hall, turning on lights and shuffling through closets. When Alice made to follow them, Jasper's hand held her back.

"Are you all right?" he asked in a low, kind voice. The concern was back in his eyes and his mouth was set in a firm line.

A flutter rose in Alice's chest at the sight of him, but the flutter wasn't the same butterflies she thought it was back when they were in love. It was the feeling of her heart being touched by his courtesy. She cradled his cheek in her hand, running her thumb along its angles before dropping her hand again. "I'm fine. Thank you for helping me," she said.

He gave her one long nod and then turned down the hall, his hand patting her shoulder. As he walked, she wondered how much of that concern for her was really hiding behind his eyes. She wondered how heartbroken she'd left him, or if he was feeling the impact at all.

He must be, she told herself. There's no way he isn't feeling something. Space is what we both need right now. We just need space from each other and helping keep Bella out of harm's way is the best possible solution for this.

Lifting her chin higher, she nodded and went into the living room to find Carlisle telling Esme and the others about the plan. When Bella caught her eye, she stood up and moved to stand by Alice. The movement pulled Carlisle's eye towards his clairvoyant daughter and he smiled at the two of them.

"Alice, we'd like to keep you and Bella together when we take her where she needs to go. With your Sight, she's going to be best served having you around to keep an eye on the battle and to stop anyone who tries to attack her."

Alice nodded and put her arm around Bella's waist. "I won't let anyone down."

Esme smiled. "We know." She nodded to Rosalie. "We should get ready."

"Of course," Rosalie said, but as soon as everyone stood up, she said, "Can I just speak to Bella first?"

A quick pause settled over the room. Alice looked from her sister to her lover and back, but only Rosalie had intention in her eyes. Carlisle shrugged and Esme led him from the room with a knowing look at her two daughters.

"Of course," Bella said, slipping from Alice's grip. Alice caught her fingers by their tips just as their hands were parting and Bella gasped.

"Don't be long," Alice whispered with a wink.

Smiling at her and shaking her head, Bella followed Rosalie onto the back porch.

Alice had every intention of walking away entirely. She slipped into the hall and had almost reached the kitchen, her thoughts turning to her packing, but as soon as she heard their voices collecting on the afternoon air, she stopped. Feeling a mixture of curious and horrible for eavesdropping, Alice snuck back to the other end of the hallway and leaned against the wall so that she might hear their conversation.

Thankfully, as Bella walked onto the porch, she left the door open and the sounds of their conversation drifted back to Alice. Rosalie didn't waste any time in saying, "I think you're making the wrong choice."

Alice's heart froze in her chest and she listened harder. For a while, no one said anything and she took that to mean that Bella was in as much shock at hearing this as Alice was.

"I'm sorry?" Bell whispered.

"I know you had us all vote on whether or not we think you should become a vampire, and I know we already cast our votes and you basically have your decision all mapped out and ready to go. I still don't think you should do this."

Another pause filled the air. Alice forgot to breathe again until she heard Bella speak, only to gasp at the words that came out of her mouth.

"You don't like me, do you?" Bella asked.

Rosalie laughed. It wasn't a loud sound, but it was clear and distinct enough that Alice could identify it as a separate sound from a scoff. "I don't hate you. I don't like you all that much, but that's mostly because you're getting yourself involved with things that you don't understand."

"Well, maybe if you explained them to me—"

"We've tried, Bella," Rosalie snapped, making Alice jump a little bit. "We've tried to. We've tried to show you. What, you think that your almost-death by James was a joke? You think that we enjoy watching our family almost get torn apart time and again is fun for us? I mean, you put Jasper in danger, let alone yourself. Two times, you've had to get involved to the point where you could see just how perilous things are for us. Isn't that enough of a deterrent? We're not going to be like anyone else and we're going to have to get out of here again once we graduate from high school."

The silence grated on Alice. She wanted more than anything to rush out to Bella's aid, to admonish her foster sister for yelling at her lover, but doing that would give away her hiding place and she was loathe to let them know that she'd been listening. Especially Rosalie. She didn't want Rose getting upset about something like this when she was clearly already upset enough.

"So what's your deal?" Bella asked, most of the niceties gone from her voice. There was something hard and matter-of-fact in place of what would've otherwise sounded like a sympathetic smile on her tone. "Why did you want to talk to me?"

Alice heard Rosalie sigh and from the sounds of exasperation, she could almost picture her foster sister waving one hand, as if to brush the whole topic away. "I wanted to remind you of what you were getting yourself into, but I can see that it's clearly not going to work."

She took a pause and Alice pursed her lips, rolling over the conversation in her mind until Rosalie spoke again. "I didnt choose this life, as you know. I was killed because of my fiancée. He tried to kill me one night, when he and his friends were drunk. It's not the most glamorous way to go, but what way is? All I'm saying is that, if I could, I would go back. I'd forego dating the man I'd chosen to wed and I'd find someone else, someone with half the money and twice the care in his heart. I'd do it all just to have the life I'd envisioned for myself. Anything, as long as I didn't end up in this one."

Stillness that could rival the dead marked the end of Rosalie's speech. When no one said anything else, Alice turned to look into the room. Just as she made to turn, Rosalie stalked by, her head held high and her shoulders pushed back, an angry, upset glint in her eye. Alice leapt out of the way just as her sister nearly barreled into her. Both of them started at the sight of the other.

"Alice!" Rosalie cried out, and then laughed, pushing the hair on her shoulders back with one hand. "What are you doing here?"

Gape-jawed, Alice swallowed and found her voice. "I—was just looking for Bella. We have to pack still," she said, pretending to peer around the side of the wall as if she was just seeing now if her lover happened to be in there.

Rosalie rolled her eyes and gestured to the porch doors. "She should be over there. It's a nice night. If you get a chance, you should enjoy it a bit before we leave," she said.

Raising her eyebrows, Alice thanked her foster sister and then watched Rosalie walk down the hall towards the bedroom she shared with Emmett. When the taller vampire had gone, Alice took a deep breath, shook her head, and went into the living room.

Sure enough, Bella still stood out on the porch, her arms dangling over the railing. Trying not to fidget, Alice crept up behind her and slipped her arms around Bella's waist. The human jumped a bit, then laughed when she saw who it was. She leaned her head back against Alice's shoulder so that, when Alice pressed her pelvis to the curve of Bella's bum, they formed one long line down the middle.

"I overheard you having a talk with Rosalie," she whispered into Bella's ear. When Bella went to lift her head, Alice shook hers and Bella rested once again, although Alice could feel the muscles in her lover's arms and shoulders stiffen.

"What did you hear?" Bella asked.

"That Rosalie was trying to deter you from becoming like us—again."

"It's not her decision to make."

Alice nodded and pressed her lips to Bella's temple. "Have you changed your mind at all?"

The ghost of a smile slipped across Bella's lips and she turned just enough so that their mouths whispered over one another. "If I had, you would know," she promised.

Alice took a deep breath as they kissed. She could smell the gardenias that bloomed along the sides of the house, as well as the rich, heady scent of Bella's blood running under her nose. Rosalie had been right—the night air drifted in warm bursts across her skin and sent Bella shivering so that the human pressed closer to Alice, as if there was some kind of warmth to be found in the vampire's arms.

"I should be the one snuggling up to you," Alice joked and Bella laughed, the sound raining around them the way the light spring showers used to do in the South.

"Someday soon," Bella said.

Running a hand down her lover's back, Alice pressed her lips to Bella's ear. "Can I be the one to turn you?" she asked.

Bella lifted her head, her eyes shining. "Of course," she said, and then her eyes went hard, even though the smile on her face said she was joking. "Do we need to get married first?"

Alice felt something in her chest hitch and the images of a beautiful, flower-strewn wedding flashed to mind, filled with lace and sheer veils and glittering lights. "Can we?" she asked, her voice reedy.

As if in reply, Bella cupped the back of Alice's head and pressed their lips together, harder than she'd ever done before.

Alice stuffed the last of her overnight clothing into a duffle bag just as Bella turned off her phone and wandered back into the room, running one hand through her hair.

"Was that Charlie?" Alice asked.

Bella nodded. "He's kind of miffed about the whole "going camping in the middle of the week" thing, but I told him that we were in science class together and that this was something of a requirement for the project we were working on."

Laughing, Alice zipped up her bag and took a seat on the bed beside it. "I'm sure that went over well."

Her lover shook her head and settled down beside Alice, wrapping her arms around the vampire's waist and resting her head against the vampire's shoulder. "He thought I was lying to him. I just hope he doesn't confirm it with the teacher."

Alice froze. Her mind raced through the possibilities of whether Charlie would do something like that. As a cop, she wouldn't put it past him to have that kind of leaning power, something he would be able to use at any time and for any reasons. She was also pretty sure one or two of the other town-run places—like the school—would be more than happy to oblige him if he asked for a favor. "He wouldn't, would he?" she asked, thinking of their teacher answering the phone and scratching her head as she tried to decide how best to break the bad news to Chief Swan.

"If he does, Esme's going to be the one to receive the call."

For a second, Alice couldn't believe what she was hearing. Once it'd sunk in, though, she laughed and pressed her cheek to the top of Bella's head. "Won't that be a shock? My poor mother." She sighed.

They sat quietly for a while, looking around Alice's room that she'd divided with Jasper at one point, before the boy had taken to rooming with Edward after Alice's proclamation of love for the human girl. She knew they were going to be back here soon enough, but she couldn't help running her eyes over everything. The closet doors sat in front of them and had been flung open in her haste to get ready. Scarves dripped from the hangers and door handles. Coats and pants and shirts of every cut and color stood in straight, tight rows above equally well-ordered shoes of every size and variety.

To the left of the bed, a vanity, similar to the one Rosalie had in her room, occupied almost an entire wall, with its long oval mirror wrapped in sparkling white lights and fake vines running along the legs. Behind them, cream curtains closed them off to the floor-to-ceiling windows that let them peek out at the dreary outside world. The whole room could've been easily made to look like a tomb or a cave with so much heavy material blocking out the sunlight, but Alice had stationed a tall, standing lamp with a soft bulb at both ends of the window and these cast the entire space in a golden glow, making it appear to be almost perpetually bedtime.

As lovely as the room was, and as spacious and clean as she'd been able to keep it, Alice closed her eyes to the sights and pressed her cheek to Bella's hair instead. The sight of the room sometimes gave her a sense of dreariness, as if the world around her had grown old and tired and she was bored with it. After so many years of collecting and dressing and redressing her spaces, she longed to get rid of what she had and have a room of just open crevices, one that echoed and rang with her footsteps.

_A cluttered space is a cluttered mind,_ Esme had once told her when Alice had come back from one of her shopping sprees.

She'd laughed then. It had been so easy and she loved—more than anything—dressing up and being trendy. She loved designing and she wanted a space where she could do this. Until she realized how many times she passed the same sweaters when she roamed through her closet. Until she slung the same old purses over her shoulders. Until she wanted to open her bedroom door and see a different space, one as barren and blank as a canvas onto which she could paint anything she wanted, and then erase it once again. Sometimes, she just didn't have the space or clothes to be or live or act the way she wanted for the day.

"You're so quiet."

Bella's voice slipped through Alice's thoughts and she blinked to find her lover's hand wrapping around her own cold fingers. She smiled at the touch, wondering if there was anything in the world that was as soft and tender as the inside of Bella's palm.

"What are you thinking about?" Bella asked.

Taking a deep breath, Alice opened her eyes, lifted her head, and glanced around the room. She considered lying and saying "You," as if that would solve all the problems in the world and allow her to continue mulling in silence on the things that often weighed most heavily on her mind. When she caught Bella's eyes, though, she saw the love there. She saw the depth of her lover's concerns, of her genuine curiosity.

_Lying will not make the bed any warmer._

"I'm thinking about changing this space," she whispered. When Bella frowned, Alice sat up a little straighter and pointed to the closet before letting her hand fall back to her lap. "I know we should probably be more worried about keeping you alive and not thinking about how to change things after this is all done, but it's been on my mind. I want a new space. I want to recreate the one I'm in. I want something…more open. The modern wood and white walls and glass is all fine, but I want to see more of it, you know?"

Bella nodded and then her lip quirked. "Are you having a midlife crisis?" she asked, her laughter barely concealed.

Alice stared at her, watching as her lover giggled and wondering how lightly she ought to take this.

"I'm kidding. I'm sorry, you opened yourself up to that," Bella whispered, kissing a small trail down the side of Alice's jaw.

Alice wrapped her arms around her lover and pulled her close, leaning as far into the kisses as she dared without hurting her human. "That's all right. It was a cute joke."

Bella placed one more kiss on Alice's cheek and then stood up, rubbing her thumb over the spot. "If you'd like to recreate your space, you should do that. But first, we need to stop these vampires."

With a laugh, Alice jumped to her feet and shook her head. "No, first we need to get you somewhere safe," she said. She stuck her hands into Bella's back pants pockets, leaning forward to press a last, lingering kiss on her lover's lips, and then gave the human's bum a light swat. "Let's go," she said, leading the way from the room as Bella's jaw dropped in mock outrage.

Alice and Bella drove in the car with Emmett and Rosalie, while Jasper and Edward rode ahead of them in Esme and Carlisle's car. No one said a word the entire time—the radio stayed off and the only sounds that permeated the Jeep were those of the world whistling around them. The sky remained a long, dark gray sheet and Alice Looked forward into the future to try to see if there was any rain in their path, but after a few failed attempts that ended in flickering visions, she decided to give it a rest. Apparently, Mother Nature wasn't something you could try to predict.

She heard Bella gasp and looked out the window around her lover's shoulder. There, just beyond them and growing ever closer, stood the twin peaks of snow-capped mountains, their bottoms colored purple and deepest green with vegetation and frostbite. Bella turned and caught Alice's eye. The fear that the vampire saw there could've taken the breath from her body, if she'd had any left. Reaching over the space between them, Alice took her lover's hand and pressed a kiss to the back of Bella's knuckles.

"We're almost there," she whispered, not knowing if this was going to come as a comfort or a threat. In the front seat, she saw Rosalie's head tilt towards them, her foster sister's dark eyes flicking over to her husband, whose head also tilted, but neither of them said a word.

They jostled the rest of the way there over hidden rocks and muddy pathways. At long last, the road stopped veering so far upright and flattened out into a small enclosure. A large boulder sat just off-center of the tiny, verdant field they found themselves in, the grass here as deeply green as the needles on the pines surrounding it, and a distant part of Alice wondered if the whole place had been contained in a sort of time freeze that kept the oncoming winter chill away.

As soon as they parked, Alice and Bella hopped out of the car and hurried over to where Esme and Carlisle stood with their hands in their pockets and their eyes on the trees around them.

"Is this where they promised to meet us?"Alice called, trying not to scan the woods herself. If they were hiding, she would be loathe to give them any impressions that they were scaring her off.

Carlisle nodded, pulling his gaze reluctantly back to his family. "This is where the army is going to meet us. Their path leads directly here, if I tracked them correctly, although how long it will take them now is anyone's guess," he said, but looked pointedly at Alice.

The clairvoyant nodded and turned inward. Seeing into the future, she focused on the army, on Seattle, and found herself being flung forward until she could see the leading vampire as though he was standing right in front of her. The boy had a neat haircut and blood-red eyes, his mouth set in a firm grimace. He and the others had left Seattle and were somehow underwater, their clothes snagging on the current as they pushed forward. Their movements were slow and their outlines were hazy, but they stretched as far back as she could see and they were determined in their walk.

She fell out of the vision almost the same way she fell into it, only instead of Jasper's arm at her side, Bella was the one holding her up. Her heart gave a small flutter at the sight of her lover's eyes hovering beside her, and then she straightened, patting Bella's hand to let her know that she was okay.

"They're coming fast. They're underwater somewhere. It looks like a lake. I'm not sure if there's anything close to the mountains that would look like this, but I know they're not in Seattle anymore. They're making their move," she told Carlisle as soon as she caught her breath.

He nodded once and turned to Esme. "We're going to need to set up a perimeter," he said and she gave his shoulder a pat.

"C'mon boys, Rosalie," she said as she scurried towards the far border of the trees. Edward, Rosalie, and Emmett were quick to respond, but Jasper hung back a bit, his eyes on Alice. She held his gaze for long enough to see that he could feel how hard it was for her to study these visions, and she could feel him calming her down the way he'd always done. Part of her wanted to shake it off and remind him that they weren't going to be able to do this all the time anymore, but another part of her enjoyed his concern, enjoyed feeling calm again, and only wanted to help him feel useful.

"Jasper?"

Carlisle's voice broke the spell both Alice and Jasper had fallen under and they snapped their attention to him, but their father's eyes were only for his son. There was nothing tense in the air, only expectation, as if their foster father understood what was occurring and didn't want to jar either of them back into the real world and the very real danger they were all in. Carlisle held out a hand.

"Let's be off," he said, in a most gentle and understanding tone.

Casting Alice one last long look, Jasper gave his father a short nod and the two of them raced after Esme and the others.

Alice sighed though her nose and then turned to Bella with a small, tight smile on her face that spoke more about her nerves than about what had occurred between her and Jasper. "C'mon. It's going to be a long road up the mountain to where we want to hide," she said. The words pained her to say and she'd expected Bella to show some sort of upset at having to travel so far, but the human only nodded and set her jaw before they gathered their things—tent, clothes, and food—and made their way across the clearing and up a path marked by two crossed trees.

"Will Jake and the others be joining us?" Bella asked as they trekked upwards through the mountain.

Alice messed up her eyes and Saw her way onto the shape shifters' path. From what she could See, they had begun traveling up the mountain much in the same way that the Cullen family had done—in one great, angry, fur-backed group of wolves with teeth bared and anger in their eyes. Or maybe that was just the way they appeared to Alice. Coming back out of her vision, she stumbled a bit and cast a grateful look at Bella when she felt her lover catch her arm. "Yes. They're on their way now. It shouldn't be long before we catch sight of them from where we're going."

"We overlook the clearing?" Bella asked.

Alice nodded, pointing to a small ridge that could be seen over the tops of the trees. "See that slab of gray stone? That's where we're going. Carlisle wanted us to determine a place where we wouldn't be found and that's probably the best bet. I'd like to be able to watch what's going on below us, but I want us to have the advantage of camouflage." She patted the canvas bag on her shoulder with a wry smile and waited while Bella studied the picture on the front.

"A green and black tent?" she asked at long last.

Alice nodded and slipped her fingers between her lover's. "The better to _not _see you with, my dear."

With a small laugh, Bella squeezed Alice's hand and they walked a bit farther in silence. Even though the hike to the ridge was long and slightly arduous, neither of them fought for breath. They arrived at their sight with just enough time to set up camp and begin settling down for the night, the sun already low over the side of the mountain. It made Alice shiver, a long, low chill running down her spine, and she kept glancing over the side of the ridge to see if anything was happening below. So far, the woods were clear and silent, just like the sky had turned out to be.

As she pulled out the tent and began snapping the pieces into place, Bella's eyes drew her attention to her lover.

"Are you all right?" Alice asked, studying her lover's figure to see if there was some injury or malady she hadn't noticed before.

"I was wondering the same about you," Bella admitted.

Blinking, Alice straightened up and pushed a hand through her hair. "What do you mean?"

She watched Bella chew on her lower lip, casting her gaze out over the mountain. The human wrapped her arms around herself, her flannel shirt and crocheted beanie not doing her much good against the cold and Alice could see the blue trails of goosebumps rising over her lover's skin. When Bella turned back to her, there was something hard in her eyes that hurt Alice as much as it seemed to be hurting Bella.

"Is there something going on between you and Jasper?" she asked.

The question shocked Alice so badly that she almost laughed out loud at the sound of it, but the sight of Bella's face told her that that would've been the worst possible thing she could do. Instead, she took a deep breath through her nose and shook her head. "Not anymore, no. But you need to understand something about us, Bella. He and I have been with each other for years." She gave a small, humorless laugh as she thought back over the incredible span of time that included. "That kind of thing—that helping each other and looking out for one another and having no one else—brings you together in ways you could only imagine until you're in them. He was my mate and my best friend."

"But did you love him?" Bella asked. Her question was soft, the way her eyes were, and Alice could sense no malice coming from her lover.

"I did. Or I thought I did, until I met you. I thought he was my one true, great, universal love," she said and then laughed, turning the tent stakes she still held over and over in her hands. "I know it sounds silly, but I thought that was what we had. I saw him in a vision and that's how we wound up together. But when I met you, that changed." She shrugged and tossed the stakes to the ground. "I thought I knew my heart, but I guess I didn't know it as well as I thought I did."

"He seems very sad now," Bella whispered, nodding down the ridge to where the other Cullens stood. "He looks at you all the time and I feel like he's trying not to cry."

The corners of Alice's mouth pulled down as she followed her lover's gaze and studied Jasper from between the tops of the pine trees. She could still see the lines on his face, the heaviness in his jaw and shoulders. She couldn't hear what was being said between everyone, but she felt like she could read Jasper's mind without any of Edward's powers.

Alice had thought she'd been alone in reading the discomfort that Jasper now felt around both her and Bella, but if Bella could see it—especially on a vampire's face—then it must've been hurting him more than she'd imagined. That wasn't the kind of pain she'd wanted to put him through, but it was either that, or let him suffer in silence while she and Bella suffered in relationships that they didn't belong in. She couldn't decide which evil was lesser…or she had, and she didn't want to admit it because it had been the choice she'd made when she told him the truth.

"It's a long time to spend with someone, only to find out that they weren't meant for you."

"Will he be okay?"

Startled, Alice looked up at Bella. The human watched her with intent and curiosity. "I think so, but only after a very long while."

Bella nodded and then closed the distance between them with long, slow steps. She took Alice's hands in both of hers and held the vampire's gaze for just as long. "Will you?"

Alice smiled a bit and touched their noses together. "I think so."

A jolt in the future brought Alice away from her time with Bella and deep into a Vision. In it, she could See the newborn army. They had cleared the lake and were making fast progress up the side of the mountain, a sight that made her heart clench in her chest and her jaw drop so that it nearly touched the ground. Just as the Vision started to fade, and she felt herself relaxing again, another Vision jolted her Sight and she was flung almost diagonally through the Sight to where the clearing with the rest of her family stood.

There, the wolf pack had arrived already and stood at attention. She didn't know which wolf was Jake, but she could swear she almost felt his presence among them and the fact that he was there at all made her feel better. It told her that he'd been able to talk to his pack leader and that everyone had come to some kind of agreement about the necessity of defending their lands. The last thing she Saw was Carlisle and Jasper talking to the wolves before the Vision faded and she blinked awake to see Bella's eyes hovering in front of her. Alice nearly melted at the sight of them, their concern ringing almost as true as Jasper's had when he'd been the one to help her out of a vision.

Swallowing hard, the moment broke as Alice regained her footing and Bella's hold relaxed on her vampire lover's arms.

"What did you see?" she whispered.

Alice turned towards the mountains behind them, focusing on a patch of sprawling green trees that covered the bottom of the passages like a great carpet. She could've sworn she could almost see the treetops shivering with the approach of the army. "Newborns. They're clearing the forest now and are making their way up the mountain. They're going to get here before too long."

She heard Bella gasp just as she felt a tug on her mind of a different sort.

"What are you going to do?" Bella asked. "How are you going to tell the others?"

The tug on Alice's mind grew more insistent and then she remembered what it was. A laugh burst from her lips and she wrapped an arm around Bella's shoulders. The human just stared at her as though wondering if she'd chosen the craziest of the Cullens to fall in love with. "Edward. He can read my mind. He's trying to right now. Excuse me for a second," she said, relaxing her mental guard as Bella's face softened.

_They're on their way?_ Edward asked through their telepathic connection.

In her mind, she could almost picture Edward talking to her, his face hard and his eyes bright with instance as he peered into her thoughts. She knew he was aware of their approach without having to ask what she'd Seen, but part of her seriously appreciated his asking. It made her feel like he felt bad for the intrusion and that he wanted her to know that she had permission to tell him what was going on in her thoughts and Visions—that he wouldn't just take them from her the way he could do with so many other people.

Alice nodded, an affirmation she felt more than thought, but she knew he could hear the positivity in her mind. _They're almost upon you. I'm not sure there's going to be much time to prepare._ She glanced at Bella, who watched her with wonder and questions in her eyes, but who also smiled a bit when Alice looked at her. It brought a smile to Alice's own lips, one that came unbidden, but one that also wasn't entirely unwelcome. Turning back to the clearing, Alice nodded. _Are the wolves doing well?_

_Well enough, _he said, but even through their thoughts, she could hear the dismissiveness of his voice, as if he was physically waving the question away with his hand. _We're going to meet them head-on if they attack. Did you see any sort of plans forming? They haven't convened and done a meeting at all, have they? They haven't made any new decisions?_

Alice pursed her lips and shook her head, a negation that, again, she knew he could feel through their telepathic link. _I'll let you know if anything changes. The leader is definitely the boy who's gone missing—the Riley kid. I'm not sure who else would be behind this, but—_

_—I guess we'll find out soon enough,_ Edward finished the sentence with a sigh and what felt like a long, hard nod. _Okay. Let me know if anything changes for us. Keep Bella safe._

Alice nodded in real time and pushed her shoulders back a little farther to bring her back up straight. _I will._

She felt the mind link go silent not a second later and a sort of heaviness set over her heart. A small wonder drifted through her mind about whether or nor this would be the last time they spoke to each other. The thought was a tiny kernel of a piece of fear that had been dancing on her heart for most of the day, but even as it occurred to her that they might not survive, she set her jaw and reminded herself that if it were, she would know and they would have a way to counteract that.

Right?

Bella's hand in hers made her jump and she gave her lover a shaky smile as the laughter disappeared from Bella's face.

"What's wrong?" the human girl asked, reaching up with one free hand to brush her fingertips against Alice's cheek. "You've got a worried face on again."

Alice smiled back, a gesture she didn't feel and one that she knew didn't reach her eyes. Taking Bella's fingers, she kissed the cold digits and then looked to the clearing, her eyes on her family and the wolves as they did quick, light training in anticipation of the oncoming storm. "I'm hoping this won't be the last time we get to speak with them. I know it sounds silly," she said before Bella could contradict her, "but it's one of those fears that doesn't feel so ridiculous at the time. Newborns are strong and uncontrollable in their first hour of life. I'm hoping we'll be strong enough to overcome whatever they bring."

Bella's lips on Alice's cheek brought an unexpected heat to the vampire's face and before she realized it, her arms were around the human's waist. She pulled Bella as close as she could, burying her face in the human's shoulder and pushing her nose into the jacket to breathe deep and fill her head with the smell of her lover.

"We'll be okay," Bella whispered into Alice's ear. "We'll be—"

_SMACK!_

The first sounds of fighting below pulled Alice's head upright. Holding her breath, she stood up straight, but kept her arms around Bella's waist, her keen eyes glaring through the trees to see the wolves and Cullens charging the newborn army. One glance at Bella told her everything she needed to know—the human had heard it, too, and knew exactly what it meant.

Alice froze. She had hoped she'd been hearing things and that everything wouldn't escalate and happen so quickly.

Instead, the battle had already begun.

Standing at the very edge of the precipice looking over the clearing, Alice watched the fight taking place. She couldn't hear Edward's thoughts anymore, but she didn't have to—the tension she could see below her told the story clearly enough.

The wolves had arrived and were lined up in the forest behind the rest of the Cullen family so that, as the newborns charged into the clearing, the wolves bounded out around the vampires. The attack came mostly as a surprise, but she could also see that most of the newborns took it as a challenge, something fun and exciting to try out when they thought they'd only be facing other vampires.

She could also see more numbers than she'd anticipated. When Alice had Seen the newborns charging through the lake, most of them had been obscured by the darkness of the water and she hadn't been able to make out their true breadth. Here, she watched with increasing anguish as _one more and then another _charged out of the woods at her family.

Her heart leapt when she saw Carlisle and Esme working together, taking turns catching and ripping the heads off of the newborns. She wanted to sing when she saw Rosalie and Emmett pirouetting around clusters of young vampires, her with her quick hands and him with his brute force, both of which came as a help to the wolves. She could see the tribe getting mauled every so often, a small group of newborns clasping onto their furry legs and clinging to their wolf bodies. Emmett made a point of sticking close to one end of the clearing, where half of the wolves had congregating in the fight, and Rosalie had chosen the other half, taking care of the same kind of job that her mate was doing, only in a completely separate area of the fight. It made Alice wonder if that had been a plan all along, or if they were just that coordinated. Either way, it filled her with pride to see her foster siblings so attuned to each other.

Edward flanked Jasper, something she hadn't thought he'd be doing. Part of her had wondered if he would be in the woods, trying to track down the stray newborns and rip them to shreds in his fury. But no, he and Jasper, both war-torn heroes of their own making, soldiered on side-by-side. At their flanks, she could see Jake's red wolf fur and another wolf, silver-haired, beside him, though she wasn't sure which of his tribe members it was. She could read the determination on each of the vampires' faces, the desire to do what needed to be done and to protect both their family and their human charge for as long as it was required.

The newborns remained faster. They twisted and turned, surprising both vampire and wolf alike until there were moments where Alice's heart almost stopped in her chest and she was certain that the battle was lost. Moments like these brought Carlisle or Esme, or one of the nameless wolves in Jake's tribe, into the foray and she sagged with relief to watch them get saved. Every so often, Alice's fists clenched and she forced herself not to tense up too much because she needed to be able to access her Visions if something truly dire happened—such as the Volturi made a decision. Still, no matter how relaxed she made herself, her eyes and ears remained on the battle and she could feel an old spark burning in her, longing to go down and defend her family as best she could with the rest of her siblings. She hated leaving them alone and being so helpless.

If she'd had a proper moment to consider it, she might've shocked herself to know that this was how Bella often felt.

After a few minutes of silent gasping and careful watching, Alice jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Beside her, Bella's wide eyes pleaded.

"What's happening?" the human girl whispered, as if afraid that asking would only herald bad news.

Alice's shoulders dropped a bit and she pointed down to the clearing, though she knew her lover couldn't see what was going on. "We're slightly overrun with newborns. They're just far too many and we're not fast enough. But I'm glad you talked to Jake," she said before Bella could burst out crying at the sound of this. "He and the rest of the tribe are down there and they're doing so well."

Bella sighed and put her hands to her chest, clenching her fingers as if in prayer, her eyelashes fluttering. "That's such good news," she whispered, her nose pointed to the clearing.

Alice smiled a little bit as she realized her lover was right, but then she was knocked out of balance by a huge Vision. It sucked her into her head, pulling her with the force of a vortex until she was left reeling and gasping for breath.

But there was no time for that. Instead, she was Shown images of a bright red flash and a brown smudge, one following the other through the woods, their movements fast. The longer she watched, the clearer everything became, as if the entire world had been on super-fast-forward and Alice had become able to slow the movie down to slower-than-real-time. She looked closer and saw the face of the brown smudge—Riley, the leader of the newborns, or so they thought, had a leer on his face. She Saw him sniffing the air as he ran, Saw him admiring the field and realizing there was something wrong. Ahead of him, the red flash kept running. This vampire knew something that Riley and the other newborns didn't.

As soon as Victoria's face came into view, Alice realized what was wrong and what they'd both figured out before any of their army had even considered the problem.

With a gasp, Alice fell out of her Vision and nearly hit the ground as she lost her footing. Bella's arms came around her like a shot and Alice gripped her lover's arms, staring up into the human girl's bright brown eyes as she felt fear and anger shaking in her own limbs.

"Victoria. She and the Riley boy aren't at the fight. They found out something was off. They realized you weren't with Edward the way they'd thought you'd be. They're coming."

For a long moment, both vampire and human stood in stunned silence, staring at each other and drinking in the implications of what this meant. Only a rattling from the surrounding trees, the shivering of leaves and pine needles in a place not too far away, roused them from their stupors and reminded them of where they were and what was coming.

Alice stood up straight, one hand on Bella's arm as she swept the tree-line with her eyes. When the rattling came again, but from a location on her other side, she started to back Bella up towards the tent.

"Bella," she whispered as her lover's hands moved to her waist, as though she was trying to maintain Alice's stance as a living—or undead—shield. "Get inside, sweetheart." She backed them up until the rim of the tent pulled under the heel of her boot. With her free hand, Alice reached for the curved pole, using the other to push her lover towards the rounded door.

Bella held onto Alice's waist, though, a motion that frustrated Alice. "No," her human lover whispered back, her breath so close to Alice's ear that it tickled a lock of hair there. "I'm staying with you. I'm not going to let you fight alone."

Alice did her best not to grit her teeth. Her angry retort sat firmly on her lips—_you won't survive against them if they're coming after you_—but was stopped when she saw someone walking through the trees towards them.

Both of her hands went to Bella's as they watched Riley make his way across the ridge. She could feel Bella stiffen up, pressing the line of her body against the back of Alice's, and for a second, she forgot all about keeping Bella inside the tent. Now it was too late. Now the boy had seen her. Now they had to fight.

"Where's Victoria?" Alice demanded. She kept part of her vision on the boy—on his sickly pallor, on his starkly black clothes, on his glowing red eyes and their hungry line of vision—while she scanned the woods behind him for his own lover.

A small quirk of a smile lifted on Riley's lips and the sight sent chills down Alice's spine, as she knew it was probably intended to do. Bella's grip tightened. "She's coming," he promised.

Alice shook her head. "You know she's only using you. You know that, whatever it is she's promised you, it's a lie." She took a deep breath and held Bella's hands tighter to her own waist, trying to remind herself that the human was still in her reach. Alice gave the forest behind him another once-over, but the trees yielded no sign of their red-headed counterpart.

The smile on Riley's face only quirked downwards once, and then it popped back up. "She said you'd say something like that. You know what else she says? That you have mind tricks. That you can reach into people's heads whether they want you to or not. You can speak to them and confuse them if you want to."

Alice would've laughed if the situation had been anything other than what it was. Her mind went to Edward, picturing the things that Victoria must've told Riley while they were preparing to fight.

_I wonder if that was who Riley was expecting. I wonder what he thinks of the situation now that Edward's not here._

As if he was listening in—and he very well could've, she realized, as she didn't know what the state of the fight in the clearing had become—she felt something tug at her mind.

_Alice, what's going on? Who's there?_

Edward's voice came, loud and clear as a church bell, through her head and it took all of her willpower not to fight him off. She hoped he could just see through her thoughts and try not to talk to her the way she'd tried not to bother him during his fight.

To Riley, she said, "And I'm sure Victoria knew all about who you were going to face coming into this battle. I'm sure she told you just where to find the human girl. Did she tell you why she wanted you to do this for her? Did she tell you about James and about their love affair?"

Riley's face quirked again and this time, Alice caught another movement in the trees. A flash of red streaked by before she found Victoria sitting above them, her eyes bright and angry, her breast heaving as if she'd run a thousand miles—and she may well have, Alice reminded herself, though she wouldn't have needed to breathe—or as if she'd become increasingly angered with the exchange between her pet and one of the Cullens. Alice could even see the stark bones of her knuckles pressing through the tops of Victoria's skin where she gripped the tree, the bark crushed under her nails and the tree limb dangerously close to breaking apart itself under her furious touch.

Everyone in the clearing turned to look at her. Riley's face finally revealed the touch of doubt that Alice had planted there, but Alice didn't let that sway her. She kept her face neutral of the pride she felt at cracking Victoria's shell, focusing instead on riling up her opponent enough to attack first, just so she could see what she was working with.

"Don't listen to them, Riley," Victoria said, her voice smooth and steady as it flowed over them. She would've been a great singer, Alice thought, and a dot of pity formed in her chest at the idea of it. "They're trying to deter you. They want you to turn against me. They don't believe in our kind of love."

"Didn't she tell you about James, Riley?" Alice asked, as if Victoria hadn't spoken.

_Alice, is that Victoria? Is she there with you?_ Edward's voice sliced a fine cut through Alice's thoughts again and she wanted to smack her foster brother for interrupting just as Victoria spoke again.

"They don't believe in fighting for eternity. They don't believe in asking for favors from those you care about, only about ripping apart anyone who doesn't abide by their beliefs. They would take you and brainwash you."

Alice laughed this time, making the sound so loud and long that the boy had to look at her. She could see the anger growing in Victoria. "Is that what she's been telling you? Is that what she has you believing this is? Riley," she said, shaking her head and taking a step towards the boy. He didn't move. Behind her, Bella whimpered, but Alice kept hold of her lover's hand, wary of Victoria as she leaned over her branch, her eyes fixed on the connection between the vampire and human.

"Riley, her mate was James. She has no great love with you. She made you—made all of your friends and army—so that she could come after Bella. She made you so that you could fight us because we killed her one true love. James." Alice looked up at Victoria, who had begun to crouch so low in the tree, so ready to fight, that she looked like some sort of deformed cat. When she spoke, she kept her eyes glued to the red-headed vampire. "She only believes in one eternity, and that's one with James. One without Bella in her life. She has no desire for eternal life with you."

"Is this true?" she heard Riley say in an almost incomprehensibly quiet voice.

_Alice?_ Edward asked just as Victoria gave a shrieking cry and launched herself from the tree at them.

Alice pushed Bella out of the way just in time. She heard the human girl stumble and cry out as she landed against the tent right when Victoria tackled Alice to the snow

The nomad was stronger than she looked. Alice had never had to fight the woman before, something they'd made sure of when they'd stopped the baseball game between the Cullens and the nomads only months before. Now, she struggled to keep Victoria's hands from circling her neck.

Gritting her teeth, Alice lifted her knees and rolled backwards. Using her feet to toss the nomad, she flung Victoria over her head, flipping herself so that she landed in an upright crouch. One glance behind her told her that the nomad slid through the snow, grasping at the rocks buried underneath to catch her fall.

The glance had given Riley enough time to sneak up on Alice. The boy landed a solid kick to the clairvoyant's side, but when he tried to hit her again, she spun to her side and out of the way, putting a good three feet between her and the newborn.

He charged after her, though. Getting to her feet, Alice met him in the middle, catching his shoulders and faking a turn. As she spun one way, he ground to a halt, thinking she was going to pass him instead of fight. Instead, Alice pushed her weight into his shoulders and shoved him, hard, into the trees. She felt the ripple through her body as she used her whole weight and sent him sprawling backwards. He flailed, hitting the forest with a loud crack, and she turned back to Victoria.

The nomad, in the five seconds where Alice and Riley had fought, made her way to where Bella was standing and pushing herself behind the tent to stay as out of the way as possible. Seeing Victoria's hands reaching for her lover, Alice cried out and dove. In a moment of gracelessness that was often uncharacteristic of her, the clairvoyant slipped in the snow, catching herself in enough time to use her momentum and let it propel her towards the nomad.

"Alice!" Bella cried out two seconds before she arrived.

The event happened in slow motion for the clairvoyant—as Alice slid towards her lover, she could see Victoria's arms reaching out, snagging Bella around the throat and across the shoulders, all with startling clarity. Blinking, Alice found herself at the nomad's feet and dropped her weight to the ground, wincing at the impact of her elbows against frozen stone.

She crashed into Victoria, kicking the nomad's legs out from beneath her. Victoria toppled onto Alice, bringing Bella with her, until all three women sprawled in the snow. The vice-like grip Victoria had had on the human's neck broke and Alice used this opportunity to snag the nomad's arms, wrenching them behind her back with a force unlike any other and one that threatened to rip them out of their sockets.

"No!"

The shout pulled Alice's attention to the opposite side of the clearing, where Riley had recovered in the ten seconds that it had taken Alice to claim victory over the nomad. His eyes seemed to grow two sizes as he watched the vampires struggle. If Alice hadn't known any better, she would've said he had tears in his eyes.

She blinked and he charged forward. She blinked again and when she opened her eyes, she had just enough time to see the anger marring his face before he knocked her to the ground. Alice cried out, but didn't let go of her grip on Victoria until Riley took a handful of her hair and wrenched her head back.

The movement shocked her so much that she let go and clawed at his hands. She could feel his breath on her cheek as he laughed close to her ear, a cruel, grating sound that would've struck fear into her heart even as a human. The sound was joined by Victoria's laughter, and Alice saw the nomad hover over her exposed neck for a beat before two hands circled her waist.

"Do it, Riley," Victoria whispered, her crazed, wild eyes boring into Alice's.

A breath of fear rattled through Alice as the newborn's hands rightened in her hair. She braced herself for the moment of truth just as she caught the scent of something sweet, warm, and heady, like violet-flavored honey drizzled over fresh sweetbread. It smelled like everything good in the world. It smelled like hope. It smelled like…

"Bella?" Alice breathed.

The eyes of every vampire turned at the same time. Off to the side, near the center of the clearing, the human stood with angry determination on her face and a long, dark line of blood running down her arm to pool into her hand from inside the sleeve of her overlarge flannel shirt.

The distraction was enough. Alice dropped her weight, slipping from Victoria's arms and freeing herself from Riley's grip. As she fell, she reached back and snagged the nomad's arms. The movement caught Victoria by surprise and she slid after Alice.

Unfortunately, Riley did, too. Alice felt his hands on her shoulders, feeling for a better grip on her neck than the one he'd had before, and as soon as he did, she started to lose her own hold. A whine escaped her lips when he began to tug on her, hard.

"That's it, Riley. That's the way," she heard Victoria saying.

A snarl split the air, close enough to them that Alice could feel her eardrums banging around inside her skull. For a second, the stench of wet fur assaulted her nose, and then Riley was crying out. Alice winced as his hands were dragged from her neck, but she turned in time to see a great reddish-brown wolf lift him aside and into the woods.

"Victoria!" he called, his half-useless fingers digging at the snow and in tot he trees for a way to hold off against the wolf.

Alice kept her eyes on the nomad, who blinked and stared at the newborn with such surprise that Alice wondered if she was really seeing Riley for the first time.

Something snapped and Alice looked over to see Riley tossing a broken tree limb as he grasped for another to hold. The wolf tugged with every ounce of its strength, doing its best to separate the vampire from its grips and kicking up a mountain of loose snow in the process. Alice almost pitied the newborn, whose eyes filled with pleading tears.

"Victoria, please!" he called.

Alice saw Victoria make the decision one second before it appeared in her head. She didn't even need the Sight to watch the light in the nomad's eyes change. Pushing back her shoulders, Victoria turned from the newborn to survey the rest of the clearing. Alice recognized the determination in her eyes, a sight that locked itself onto Alice and didn't spare a glance for Riley.

Another limb snapped and the newborn's plaintive "No!" told her everything she needed to know about whether or not the newborn recognized Victoria's decision. She didn't hear him struggle again as the wolf dragged him off into the woods.

In the space of time between Victoria making her decision and Riley's disappearance, Alice moved. It wasn't a huge window, but it gave her enough chance to tackle Victoria to the ground. As the nomad struggled, biting and spitting, Alice took huge chunks of Victoria's orange hair and used it to lift the nomad's head. She bashed Victoria's skull into the ground as hard as she could, one, two, three times while the nomad tried to scratch at Alice's eyes, face, hands, shoulders, arms—anywhere she could reach.

Gritting her teeth, Alice tugged Victoria's head with all her might, the nomad's screams filling her ears. Reaching deep inside herself, the clairvoyant heaved a breath and twisted her hole torso hard to the left.

A loud _clink!_ filled the air. Victoria's head came off in one clean, if jagged, swipe and tumbled to the ground, her hair bright and bold against the white snow and black mountain earth.

Heaving a sigh, Alice stood up and tried to stop her knees from shaking.

"Alice!" Bella called.

With trembling hands, the vampire turned just in time to catch her human lover as she flung herself into Alice's arms. The scent of blood overpowered Alice's senses and she staggered backwards a step, trying to stop the salivating and willing herself to turn away from her lover's bleeding arm.

"Your cut," she gasped, swallowing hard. Alice wrapped her hands around her lover's small waist and pushed the human girl back, covering her nose with her hands when Bella finally released her. "You're bleeding," she said at the hurt and confused look her lover wore.

Bella swore as she remembered and tried to tear a piece from her shirt. "God, I'm so sorry, Alice," she said as she struggled to rip the fabric.

Unable to stand the temptation any longer, Alice reached over and tore a strip free, knotting it hard against the cut. Her fingers lingered on her lover's soft, supple skin, the tips mere centimeters from the lines of drying blood on Bella's arms. Only the tout of Bella's cheek against hers brought her back from her thoughts.

"I'm sorry," the human whispered, moving her arms out of reach and taking the vampire's hands instead.

Alice shook her head, leaning into her lover's cheek. "Don't be. You did what you had to do." She gave a small laugh that wasn't really a laugh. "If you hadn't, I'd probably be dead by now."

She felt Bella nod and the skin of the human's cheek went cold as Alice felt the blood drain from her face. "And I'd probably be at the mercy of Victoria."

Dropping her lover's hands, Alice pulled Bella close as she wrapped her arms around the human's waist. The movement helped to push thoughts of death from her mind, reminding her that her lover was safe and warm and solid in her arms, a still-living presence tucked beside Alice's body.

"Speaking of Victoria," Bella said, her voice cutting through Alice's thoughts.

Alice gave her one final squeeze and then let go, her attention turning to the nomad where she lay in pieces on the ground. She gave the body a tight smile and hopped to the tree line, tearing two small, but sturdy branches from a lower limb. Setting these aside, she grabbed a few thicker branches and made a generous woodpile at the base of the tree before hauling them into her arms and depositing them on top of the nomad.

"What's all this?" Bella asked, watching as Alice made a pyramid of the branches directly over Victoria's abdomen, stuffing the severed head inside the remaining crawl space.

"We have to burn the body," Alice said. She picked up the two remaining branches and rubbed them together as hard and as fast as she could. It took a minute, but soon enough, the motions had produced a thin line of smoke that popped to life with a red-gold flame at its center. Alice touched these to the dead nomad's neck and feet before she dropped them onto the stick pyramid and the whole array went up in a rush of heat.

"That should do it," she muttered, just as a hard tug on her mind pulled her forward. She felt her thoughts give a lurch and gasped as she saw the forest below them. The Vision dragged her downward into the lush green and brown carpets at the base of the mountain, places where the snow hadn't touched. As she Watched, four figures emerged like smoke from amongst the trees. Like a dream, Alice felt that they'd been there the whole time, though she couldn't remember where they'd come rom, how long they'd been there, or what their purpose was.

It ceased to matter, though, when their faces came into view. Jane's was first, an angry child with a bright pink line of a mouth and a glare in her eyes that told Alice she'd been promised a day off and was having to cut into it to deal with whatever it was she came for. Felix was next, to Jane's immediate left, towering over his friends and wearing a humored expression on a face that had rounded and expanded with the maturity of a man in his mid-twenties. To Jane's immediate right, Demetri sauntered even as he flew across the debris of leaves. Though he was shorter than Felix, his face carried the same age, though his slender physique kept the skin of his cheeks tight to his bones instead of expanding in the jaw and cheeks. Finally, to Jane's far right, Afton glided just a step behind his mates. He watched his friends with a sort of uncertain pride, as if he wasn't sure whether or not he belonged amongst their ranks. Seeing him even confused Alice, but she put her worry away when the Vision ended, shoving her back onto the mountaintop and into Bella's reaching arms.

"They're coming," she gasped, drinking in the warm and welcome sight of her lover's eyes and taking comfort from the human's steady hands as she pushed herself upright.

"They?" Bella asked as Alice turned and dropped to one knee, holding her arms out behind her in a sort of backwards cradle.

"The Volturi," Alice said. Relief filled her when Bella took the hint and slid onto her back. Forcing balance into her legs, Alice stood up, gripping Bella's legs on either side of her waist, and tore off through the woods. Trees whistled past her ears and she only just heard Bella whisper, "The tent," as they surged downwards.

"We'll clean it up when we come back for Victoria," Alice called. "It won't be long, the sun's nearly up now."

She felt Bella nod against her hair and as she ran, she let it sink into her mind that they'd been up all night trying to fight the future. Even though she didn't sleep, Alice felt a weariness sink into her bones. When they reached the clearing, she took a deep breath and willed steadiness into her posture.

Bella lifted her head from Alice's shoulder as they stopped running and gave her vampire lover a shaky smile that spoke volumes about the tiredness the human was facing. Putting a hand to Bella's cheek, Alice promised her silently that there would be a long sleep after this was over.

"Alice!"

Edward's voice broke her from her thoughts and she looked up in time to see him running over. The tension in his body was palpable, but when he got a chance to study her and Bella, his shoulders relaxed and he slowed to a stop in front of them. "What happened up there?" he asked, nodding to the precipice.

She gave him a tight smile and watched as the rest of her family—Carlisle, Esme, and Jasper, most notably—ran up behind Edward. She was about to speak, but her chance was smothered when her parents came over and embraced her and Bella.

"We were attacked," Alice muttered into the polyester of her father's jacket. She took comfort from the feeling of his hand running up and down her back, the feeling of his lips on her hair.

"Attacked by whom?" Esme asked, releasing her hold on Bella and embracing Alice instead. Carlisle followed the switch and pulled the human girl into his arms so that Alice became overwhelmed by the soft warmth of her mother's sweater. The feeling made her want to cry. She wasn't used to being this loved, this cared about, and the fact that someone was so concerned filled her up so much she felt overwhelmed by it.

"Victoria," she said, her voice thick with emotion.

A note of alarm shot through their group. She watched Esme and Carlisle exchange a glance before turning back to her. "What was Victoria doing here?" Esme asked.

Alice heaved a sigh and slipped her hand into Bella's, pulling the strength and warmth of her human lover into her body the way a dehydrated beggar would gulp water. "She's the one who created Riley. She helped him create the newborns, making all sorts of promises about what they would be when the war was over."

Bella nodded softly and then turned to their small audience. "She made the army to come after me. I guess she figured it was so hard for her to get me killed before that she needed a whole mess of help in order to succeed this time."

"Only she didn't realize where we were—or who was there—until after she set the newborns onto us," Alice continued. A shiver stole up her spine at the thought. "I guess she must've found us afterwards. She must've followed some scent or another."

With a cringe, she watched her parents' faces fall. Looking around at the sight, she saw the field of dead, headless bodies and wondered just how badly things had gone.

"Edward said he saw what was happening, but vaguely," Carlisle said, his voice cutting through the tension. "He knew you were in distress, but he couldn't say how."

Alice gave a small, humorless laugh. "I can imagine. What happened down here? Is everyone okay?"

Quick nods came from everyone in the group, sending a wave of relief through Alice's shoulders. "There were more newborns than we'd expected, but we managed ourselves better than they'd guessed." He nodded at Esme and she shared his smile. "It's like we always feared—they're strong, but they don't know their own strength. They're uncoordinated and it gave us an advantage."

At this news, the stress Alice had felt in worrying about her family melted away. She gripped Bella's hand tighter as her eyes sought out Jasper's. She couldn't have said why they did this, only that she had something of an instinct for it. Her former lover stood at the back of the group, his head bowed and his blonde hair threatening to hide his face. She wanted to reach out and push it back, to tell him to pick his head up and to be proud of what he'd done.

He must've felt her gaze, for when he lifted his eyes, they found hers. Alice could practically trace the scars she saw there, the way she'd done so many times before over so many sleepless nights when he would cry out, tossing and turning against his memories and nightmares when they invaded during his downtime. She remembered being the only one to hold his hand, to whisper comforts into his ears, to trail her fingers through his hair while he clung, sweat stained even as a vampire, to her waist and begged—_pleaded_—with her to take these visions away. It still made her heart clench to think about.

Now, the sorrow in his eyes melted a bit when he looked up. She could see the relief there at finding her safe and sound, and it filled her heart with something akin to sadness to know that, even now, after she'd broken his heart, he was searching for her.

A loud crack pulled her attention from Jasper's and threw it onto the forest at the other end of the clearing. While she and the rest of her family watched, a quick, human-like figure darted from the trees and behind the stack of boulders in the middle of the grass. It was followed closely by a gray wolf, which was also being followed by a reddish wolf, all of whom disappeared behind the stones.

"Looks like we missed one," Alice heard Carlisle whisper under his breath, making the words sound more like a string of curses than a simple afterthought.

Her hand tugged and she looked to her side, where Bella had begun to surge forward, her face stricken.

"That's Jake," she whispered.

As they watched the boulders, waiting for the wolves to emerge again, they caught sight of the newborn racing out from around it. The gray wolf got to the vampire first, snatching him up in her jaws and throwing him onto the boulders with a great _crack!_ Alice found herself holding her breath as she watched the vampire recover and slam into the gray wolf's side, sending her rolling.

She leaped up again, but the reddish wolf had appeared, sailing over the boulders and knocking the vampire newborn over. For a second, they struggled on the ground. When the newborn got his arms around the reddish wolf's stomach, though, Bella broke away from Alice with a cry.

Not two seconds later, a muffled cracking echoed across the clearing towards them. The reddish wolf screamed, whimpered, and fell limp, hitting the ground with a thump as the newborn tossed it aside.

"Jacob!" Bella called, racing towards the reddish wolf.

Alice's heart gave a resounding thud, as if stirred from the grave by the sight of her lover running to her death, and she took off after her human. "Bella, no! Get back!" she called.

She caught up to Bella, wrapping her arms around the human girl and throwing them both down as the red, crazed eyes of the bloodthirsty newborn surged at them. Edward and Jasper appeared at either side of Alice's vision, ensnaring the newborn's arms and tearing them away with a grunt and the snap of bloodless porcelain. The anger and determination she read on their faces made her shiver, but no sooner had the newborn been dispatched—or its head torn off, not two seconds later—than Bella had extracted herself from Alice's arms and closed the space between her and Jacob.

A tug pulled at Alice's heart, but just as it did, she reminded herself that Jake was just a friend and that Bella wasn't running as if to a lover's side. Still, Alice took off after her human lover, followed by the rest of her family, to where Jake lay.

He'd phased back to his human form, his taut, bronzed muscles luminous in the light of the rising sun. But every part of him, from the backwards craning of his neck to the curling of his strong, bare toes, reeked of agony. His left hand clenched and cradled the length of his right arm to his chest and he seemed to do his best to stay on his left side, favoring his right.

"Jacob, you moron, I had him!"

Alice's head jerked to attention as a tall, lithe woman in a sleeveless gray shirt—very like the color of the wolf's fur, in fact—and short-cropped black hair rounded the boulders. As the vampire watched, the woman's almond-shaped eyes widened at the sight of her fallen comrade, raking over Jake's body from head to foot. The sight must've been too much for her—the woman stopped where she was, though her fingers seemed to reach out of their own accord before she realized what she was doing and dropped the action entirely.

Without a second thought, Alice realized that she recognized that look. It was the same one Jasper had worn after she'd had her first Vision in his presence during their post-breakup. Part of her was tempted to call it heartbreak, and she found that she longed to do just this, but the thought was dismissed when Carlisle fell to his knees on the other side of Jake. Alice watched his hands roam the shapeshifter's body, testing the muscles of the boy's arm and around the curvature of his lungs.

"Carlisle," Rosalie said from somewhere behind Alice.

They looked up to see a small group of about five black-haired, well-built men with hard expressions of stress or concern come around to where they were crouched. The tallest of them, a man with a perpetual frown etched into his eyebrows and the downward curve of his mouth, stepped forward.

"Not now, Leah," he growled, throwing a fast glance at the gray-shirted woman before coming to a stop beside the vampire doctor.

"The bones on his right side are shattered," Carlisle explained to this man. "You're going to need to take him back to his house. I can operate on him there."

The frowning man studied Carlisle's face, but just as he seemed about ready to reconsider, Alice felt another tug on her mind. Pitching forward, she felt herself being pulled until the only thing she saw below her was a sea of green—the tips of trees, their pines all a variety of verdant colors. She might've been soaring for how smoothly the Vision pulled her along, then it dove, and she was wound through the forest to where the Volturi strode. They exchanged a single glance between them and then moved faster, if that was possible, until they ran out of sight and the Vision blurred.

Blinking hard, Alice looked up to find Jake still lying on the ground in front of her, but this time, her father's arm had reached across the boy to touch Alice's shoulder. Meeting her father's eyes, she swallowed hard, not wanting to disclose the bad news, despite the soft understanding she saw in her foster parent.

"What happened?" he asked, his tone even.

"Volturi," she whispered. As soon as the word left her lips, she heard a volley of curses behind her, all in Emmett's rolling tone of voice.

Carlisle glanced once at his swearing son before he turned back to her with a soft nod. "How long?"

Remembering the Vision, Alice considered the numbers for time and distance in her head. "We have long enough to burn the bodies and get the wolves out of here."

Her father touched her cheek and stood up, facing the bronze-muscled pack behind him. "Then that's what we'll do. Take Jacob home, but quickly. I'll meet you there as soon as I can."

The leader, the frowning man, nodded and called a short command to the rest of his group. Alice put her arm around Bella's shoulder, pulling her human lover back as the pack moved forward and took up positions at Jake's arms and legs. Her heart gave a small clench when Bella reached out and trailed her fingers across her childhood friend's good shoulder, and another when she whispered, "It's going to be okay, Jake. I promise." But when Bella pressed her face to Alice's shoulder, the clairvoyant mentally berated herself for getting so touchy when all Bella was doing was expressing concern for her friend.

_She doesn't jump to defense every single time Jasper and I share a look, for God's sake,_ Alice reminded herself. As this realization sank in, she made a silent promise, a secret one that would stay between her and Bella, but one that could be seen from the stars: _I won't let myself become the kind of person who grows jealous at every sign of my lover's friendliness towards other people._

No sooner had she made this promise to herself than they watched Jake get carried away on the shoulders of his pack mates. The woman, Leah, seemed to linger behind at first, but once the walking really began, she caught up, cradling Jake's head.

"You're such an idiot sometimes, Jake," Alice thought she heard the wolf-woman mutter, her tone teasingly-concerned, but certainly not angry. The temptation to see into their future, to follow the ebb and flow of the wolf-woman's decisions to see where she and her "idiot friend Jake" might end up, tickled at the back of her mind.

A second later, they were gone, taking any fleeting ideas about seeing into their futures with them. Both Alice and Bella turned around, surveying the wreckage of the battle around them. The grimaces on the rest of the family's faces spoke volumes about what she knew had to happen next. Carlisle's eyes found Alice's, holding her gaze for a long second before turning to the rest of the group.

"Let's get to work before the Volturi arrive," he said.

Pressing a kiss to her lover's forehead, Alice nodded to the nearest body and, with Bella's assistance, began the process of piling the vampire carcasses up.

Despite the pressing need to get their work done as fast as possible, Alice fell into a kind of rhythm with the rest of her family, one that even Bella—to her great amusement—was able to keep up with. They didn't rush and they didn't leave a mess. Instead, they carried the bodies over to a great pile they silently established in the middle of the clearing. Here, they watched the carcasses become less numerous than the field of bodies had suggested upon first sight. This filled Alice with a sort of relief, but again, it made her question why this seemed to be a good thing.

_Perhaps it's because there weren't as many lives lost as we anticipated?_

Edward's voice broke through her thoughts and with a gasp, she looked up. Her foster brother stood across the fire from her, his weary eyes heavy as he studied her face.

_The words I didn't want to admit to myself,_ she telepathically agreed and watched as, with a flick of a silver lighter he'd taken from his pocket, her foster brother lit the bodies up into a roaring blaze, aided by lengths of tree branches placed at strategic angles to help further and direct the flames.

While they burned, Alice thought of all the children who had left their mothers and fathers childless by becoming vampires and now burning in the middle of what might as well be nowhere for their families. She thought about how their parents—their loved ones—would never know, and probably go their entire lives without any closure. She wondered what that would be like: to have no idea about what was happening with your child, or sister, or mother, or aunt, or friend. To know that they were missing and you couldn't do anything about it—the police couldn't find them, the missing signs went unanswered, the time passed, and you still had no idea.

"You're bleeding." Edward's voice jolted Alice from her thoughts and she glanced over her shoulder to where Bella was standing. As his fingers reached for her sleeve, the small rivulets of dried blood like smudges of ink on her arm, she shifted just out of his reach, touching the cloth bandage Alice had fashioned for her and hiding the visibility of the scrapes.

For a second, Alice's thoughts went back to the newborn bodies burning in front of them and she felt herself beginning to reel over the idea that, not a few months ago, Bella had wanted this. She'd wanted to be this. And as soon as the thought entered Alice's mind, she went to Charlie in her head and tried not to imagine the sorrow on his already troubled face. She tried not to imagine—or even See—Chief Swan becoming one of the parents who never finds out what happened to their child. She tried not to imagine how hard he would search, the resources he would pull, and possibly the people he would call into questioning in order to find out what had happened. The idea brought another to her mind—that she and her family would then be at risk and he would have them held until he could figure out why, when his daughter was alone with them, she had disappeared and why the Cullen family would tell them nothing. The prospect left her short of breath and she touched her throat for want of air.

"I was. Alice stopped it," Bella said, her voice breaking through Alice's thoughts and Alice blinked in time to see the human giving her vampire lover a small smile.

Edward didn't turn away, though. "Was it Victoria?"

Steeling herself, Alice dropped her hand from her throat and raised her chin up to face her brother. "She did it to save my life," she said, watching her brother's gaze turn slowly from his former lover to his foster sister.

The expression could've been neutral, had anyone looking at him been a human, but Alice could see the truth. It was hard and worried at once. The way he looked at her—with the same sadness and hope and longing that she'd always attributed with his knowing what others were planning before even she could See it—told her that he knew her thoughts. In fact, she was almost certain he'd had the same ones. It was a look that said, "Now you understand my opposition to her transformation, no matter how much she wants it."

Again, Alice lifted her chin, having begun to bow her face under the knowledge and sadness that she'd seen in her brother's eyes. "Victoria and Riley were about to kill me and she cut herself to distract them." With a small smile that she didn't really feel, Alice reached for her human lover. Bella came to her without hesitation and the warmth of the human's hand in hers tugged a true smile from Alice's lips, one she couldn't stop and wasn't sure she wanted to. "Without her, I'd be dead, and so would Bella, probably."

From the corner of her eye, Alice could see her foster brother nod. A loud, heavy rustling broke the moment in two and pulled the attention of the entire coven towards the tree line. There, they saw the flash of a small figure with long hair and wearing baggy clothes try to dart into the forest.

"Oh no, you don't," Emmett growled and shot off after it just as his father called, "Emmett! Be gentle. She's just a girl."

Blinking hard at the interruption, Alice turned back to her parents. They watched their foster son with worry etched into the subtle lines of their faces. When Emmett came back, he had a young girl with a soft face framed by long, tangled brown hair and frightened red eyes under his left arm.

"What's all this?" Alice asked, turning back to her parents. "Who is she?"

Sighing, Carlisle watched his son lead the girl towards them. "This is Bree Tanner. She was one of the newborns created by Riley. They brought her to fight, but instead, she stayed in hiding. When we saw her, we almost killed her, but she froze and screamed and begged us to let her go, so we put her aside until the battle was over."

"I don't understand," Alice said, exchanging a look with Bella as Esme stepped forward and took Bree from her son.

"Thank you, Emmett," she muttered, putting her hands on the newborn's shoulders before turning back to Alice. "She didn't want to fight. She was confused and we offered her asylum in exchange for her surrender." Esme's eyes flicked towards Bella and Alice immediately took one step to her left, half-hiding her human lover from the newborn's sight. "She's promised not to hurt any of us and we've promised to take her under our wings, should the Volturi be so inclined to let us do so."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Alice asked, her eyes on the newborn. Bree kept her face to the ground, glancing up every so often with quick, flighty glances at those surrounding her before removing her gaze entirely, as if scared to be caught looking at the others.

Carlisle nodded. "It's been proven to me time and again that any vampire who's willing can learn to control their urges and be taught to behave as a part of a normal, civilized society. We were able to do that as a coven—I see no reason why we shouldn't extend such an opportunity to anyone else among us who wishes it." He clapped a hand on Bree's shoulder. The newborn jumped and then half-relaxed, but her eyes traced the faces of the family around her.

Just as she was considering her father's words, Alice felt a tug on her mind. This time, she didn't fall forward as much as felt her vision go blurry, and then confusion filled her thoughts. The Vision—if it could even be called that—showed the clearing. In fact, it showed the clearing just as it was, from Alice's perspective looking onto the forest. The only difference, she realized, was something subtle. At the very end of her senses, she could almost taste a change in the wind—a cold, hard blast and a rippling of the world as if a great curtain was parting and allowing something unnatural to occupy the holistic space. Just as the Vision died again, showing a brief rattling of the trees and the shrubs and a parting of the fog that slipped between the trunks in the early morning light, she knew exactly what this vision was showing her.

"They're coming," Alice called, just as the Volturi entered the clearing.

They swept across the grass like a great stream of black brocade cloaks and embroidered outfits. As she'd seen in the Vision, Jane led the way, followed by Felix and Demetri at either side, Afton lingering at the back. She felt her breathing hitch and jumped when Bella's hand tightened around her own. The reminder of her human lover sent a wave of fierce protectiveness through her shoulders and she stood up straighter, half-blocking Bella again as the rest of her family fell into line around her, just blocking the fire from view.

In no time at all, the Volturi stood only a handful of feet in front of them, lowering their hoods in unison, but Alice could see that only Felix took any pleasure in being here.

"I see we've missed the battle. Pity," Jane called, her voice carrying effortlessly on the wind. She studied each of them in turn, her eyes lingering first on Alice and then on Bella and Alice could've sworn she saw the tip of Jane's nose crinkle with disgust. "It's not often that the Volturi are rendered unnecessary," she said, turning her gaze on Carlisle.

Alice held her breath and glanced at her father as a thread of tension shot through the rest of the group. The move felt daring—even though Jane wasn't watching her, she felt that the other three liked to keep a close watch on the Cullen's coven. She wondered if they liked studying the way the family worked, trying to figure out how everyone meshed together without killing themselves off so easily the way the newborn army had managed to do. After such a proclamation from Jane, though, she could only guess at what her father was going to say.

"If you'd been here but a few minutes earlier, you would've been in it," he promised. The tone of the explanation was warm and caring, gentle the way only Carlisle could be. It was a promise he made in his best doctor's voice and Alice knew it was meant to soothe the rough patches created by Jane's proclamation.

Alice saw Jane's eyes flash and her shoulders straighten and it made her move her hand from Bella's to around her human lover's waist.

"Such a shame," Jane whispered, or nearly did, her voice grew so soft. A tremor shot up Alice's spine and she struggled to keep herself from showing such a weakness in the face of the guard. Then her eyes flicked to somewhere over their shoulders and her lips tilted upwards in a small smile and she threw a warm look at Felix. "Or perhaps not. Maybe we're needed after all."

Almost as one, the entire Cullen family turned to where Bree stood, hovering at the back of the group. At their attention, the newborn froze, crouching lower as if to hide herself behind the rest of the family. Without a sound, Jasper broke away from the group and put his arm around the young girl, raising his chin as he did, as if in defiance of the Volturi laws. It made Alice's breath catch in her chest and she hoped, more than anything, that the guards didn't see it the way she perceived they would. From her immediate right, she heard Carlisle speak, redirecting everyone's attention back to the Volturi.

"The young vampire was not among the fighters causing havoc. We found her hiding in the forest, terrified, and offered her asylum in exchange for her surrender," he said.

The line of Jane's mouth grew hard and the humor left the soft roundness of her cheeks. "That asylum wasn't yours to offer," she said in the same tone with which she'd celebrated the sight of the undead newborn. Alice watched her eyes shift to the space behind them once again, to where Bree stood, and a scream rent the air.

She couldn't help it—Alice spun on her heel, mouth agape, to see what was happening, and found that her mother, lover, and Rosalie had done the same.

Bree lay on the ground, her small body contorting itself into severely unnatural positions. Her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth yawned open with her scream, a grotesque picture for the kind of torture—completely mental and thus, entirely physical—that Jane was inflicting upon the newborn. It was only going on for a second before Jasper was on his knees, pressing his hands to Bree's face.

"Stop it!" he shouted and Alice's breath caught as she watched his cheeks redden, the scars on his face standing out in such bright relief that she would've been amazed if even Bella didn't see them. "Stop it!" he called again, but Bree's screams didn't cease.

"Who created you?" Jane asked, her voice as quietly deadly as ever. Alice wondered if Bree could even hear her through the red-hot pains shooting across her whole body, through the shrieks of agony emanating from her own lungs. It brought back painful memories for Alice—screams she understood the source of, terror she could both imagine and remember having lived, pain like she'd never experienced before. Memories of cement walls and white-robed doctors with full-face masks and long, ugly, shining needles that flashed under bright, bright lights in half-lit rooms, and sometimes even in the shafts of sunlight streaming into half-open corridors where people were caught misbehaving and given stronger doses of medications that they already couldn't handle a single shot of. A pair of tears slipped down Alice's cheeks and she pressed herself closer to Bella, who had taken to hiding her face in her vampire lover's shoulder.

Just then, something warm and heavy manifested itself over the family. A sort of peace and calm settled over Alice and she felt herself relaxing, her breathing growing steady. Sighing hard, she blinked herself from her memories as they melted back into the shadowed recesses of her human thoughts and turned back to where Jasper hovered over Bree. His hands still lingered on her cheeks, not so much pressing as stroking with the lightest of touches, but a determined frown furrowed his brow and the red of his cheeks still stayed in full bloom.

"What's your purpose here?" Jane demanded, shouting this time. The sound startled Alice so heavily that she jumped. Turning back to the guard, she could see the fury written on Jane's face as Bree screamed louder, longer, filling the air and the woods with the sound of her torment, even while not a single word of response was uttered.

"Stop it."

The angry, cursed words that spilled from Jasper's lips called Alice's attention back to him again and the sight of him took her breath away. All of the anger and fury he felt at the Volturi for torturing the young girl showed plainly on his face, but even as he grew fierce, Bree's screams calmed until they were morphed into sobs. She still trembled beneath his hands, her hands and legs stiffly held at their awkward angles, but a sort of odd, half-possessed serenity settled over the rounded features of her child's face. The breath was stolen from Alice's lips as she realized that Jasper was fighting Jane for control—and he may well have been winning.

"You don't have to do this," Esme said, her tone pleading. "She'll tell you anything you want to know."

Alice spared a glance at her mother and found the woman also trembling, though not quite to the same degree that Bree did. Instead, some deep, maternal instinct seemed to be pulling itself towards the newborn, begging Esme to run over to the girl and wrap her arms around Bree, rocking the child until every fever and fear slipped from her thoughts.

"She will," Jane said, her eyes flashing again and Alice watched her turn to the newborn. "You _will_," she repeated, the crease between her eyebrows deepening.

Bree whimpered, but nodded soon after, the violent bobbing of her head significant enough for Jane to release whatever hold she had over the girl, for the newborn's stiffened limbs went slack. Curling herself into a ball, tears streaming down her eyes, the newborn rolled over, pressing herself to Jasper's legs as he smoothed his hand over her hair, whispering to her under his breath. Alice's heart lightened to see the redness draining from his face and his scars going back to hiding, but the frown never left his brow—only the exertion did that.

"I did not release you for cowering and tears," Jane reminded the newborn, her voice so close that Alice almost believed she stood right at their backs.

Jasper bowed his head a bit more and Bree nodded. Pushing herself to her elbows, she looked at Jane through a curtain of hair, soothed by Jasper's hand on her back. "I d-don't know who c-created us. R-riley never said. H-he said our t-thoughts—" she swallowed hard, "weren't s-safe."

A surge of anger rose up in Alice and she turned to the Volturi. "It was Victoria, the nomad who sent herself and her small coven upon us in order to kill Bella not long ago," she said, hoping her voice sounded as strong and assured as she wished she felt.

"Perhaps you knew of her?" Edward asked from somewhere to their left. There was a hard kind of sarcasm in his voice that drew Alice's attention. He'd put himself between Bella and Rosalie, his hands trying not to clench themselves at his sides, but his eyes were only for Jane.

"Edward," Carlisle warned as Jane puffed up to stand nearly two inches taller.

"Had we known about Victoria's existence—and her apparent vendetta against your kin—we would've ceased it immediately," she said, her eyes turning towards Bree again. "As we'll do now."

A cold, dead weight settled over Alice's chest and she watched Felix begin to make his way over to the newborn.

"You don't have to do this," Esme called again, halting the Volturi guard in his tracks. "We'll take responsibility for her. We'll bring her under our wing. Won't you give her a second chance?"

Jane's eyes hardened and turned on Bella. "We aren't so generous as others might've been at one time, so no. We cannot allow that," she said, catching Alice's gaze. "I would remember this time, in excruciating detail. Caius will be interested to know that Bella's still human."

A chill ran down Alice's spine and she wondered if they knew Bella wasn't with Edward anymore. She could feel her brother's eyes on the side of her head just as Bella said, "The date's set. It won't be long now."

Alice tightened her grip around her lover.

"We'll see that it isn't," Jane whispered.

The promise tightened something deep in Alice's chest and she wanted to cry out against it, but Felix was already making the next move. He strode towards the rest of the Cullens with assurance, and even though they refused to part for him, he wound his way through their group with the ease of a black panther. The only tremors Alice felt came from the back of the group.

"No!" Jasper shouted, the command so violent that she turned around. To see him standing between the guard and the newborn was something so surprising that even she couldn't believe she was seeing it. The same anger that had risen up in his eyes when Bree had been tortured rose up again now, and part of her was willing to believe that it was this alone which stopped the guard in his tracks.

"You won't hurt her. She's just as hard-off as the rest of us. She came into this world with just as much kicking and screaming as we all did, and she deserves a happy life," he said, his voice ringing through the clearing.

Stunned silence met his proclamation for a good long minute. When Jane moved towards him, it was with a whispering of her cloak and the lightest crunching of her heeled shoes across the grass. Alice pressed Bella to her side and watched in amazement as Felix moved aside and Jane took his place, staring Jasper in the eye. She wanted to cheer when he didn't look away.

"Then you will be her charge," she whispered, her words something of a cursed proclamation instead of a blessing in disguise. Alice felt herself freezing up, but inside, she glowed with pride as Jasper met her words and stare evenly. "And should she slip up, even one more time—" The guard took a step back. "Well. I don't think I even have to finish that sentence," she said. Turning on her heel, she strode back through their group, Felix at her side—or as best as he could be, with having to weave around the Cullen family members.

Throwing one last glance over her shoulder, she met each of their eyes in turn, leaving Bella's and Alice for last and sending a great chill through the vampire's limbs. "We'll be around," she said and, with what seemed to be almost a puff of smoke, disappeared into the early morning mist as if she'd never even been there.

After the fight, everyone went their separate ways. Carlisle first went home with Alice and the others, but only to change cars and scurry off to the reservation, burning rubber all the way. Once Alice and Bella got back to the Cullen house, Bella kissed her vampire lover on the cheek and promised to be back soon.

"I need to go be with Jake right now," she whispered into Alice's shirt when he vampire pulled her close.

"Be careful," Alice said. With a nod, Bella relinquished herself and got back into her giant red truck, roaring off down the road until Alice couldn't physically see her anymore.

Inside the house, she felt that she could cut the tension with a steak knife. Emmett and Rosalie had already disappeared upstairs, but Edward had taken to the couch, where he lay prostrate, one arm dangling towards the floor with his head buried in the seat cushions. As she watched, Esme ran her fingers through his hair. Feeling her daughter's gaze on the back of her head, the vampire mother glanced up and gave Alice a soft smile.

"Why don't I make us all some tea?" she asked, disappearing into the kitchen.

Confused, Alice turned to her brother. Edward picked up his head and met her eyes, but only shrugged and pressed his face back into the couch.

"I'm not sure what she means by that, but whatever it is, I'd go with her. I'm just too tired right now."

Nodding, Alice touched his shoulder and bypassed him as she wandered into the kitchen, only to come to a stop once again.

Jasper and Bree sat at the counter on two high barstools. The newborn's fingers gripped her own hands tightly, even as Jasper spoke to her in a quiet voice, a kind smile on his face that Alice knew all too well. Looking at the two of them, she wondered distantly if this was the beginning of a new love affair for him, but then she felt Edward enter her mind with the ease of a breeze through lace curtains.

_He's just protective. He tried to save her. She's like a little sister to him, it seems._

Setting her jaw, Alice sighed hard through her nose. _Thank you._

_Anytime,_ Edward muttered telepathically before he slipped from her thoughts once again.

At the sink, Esme was tipping a hospital bag of blood into a stainless steel tea kettle and for a second, Alice's heart skipped a beat. Stretching out her senses, she sniffed the contents of the bag and almost laughed with relief.

_Animal blood. Don't be stupid, Alice,_ she berated herself mentally and then glided over to where her mother was staring out the window at the newly risen sun, the day already waking up to see them battleworn.

"And we don't drink human blood," Jasper was telling Bree in a voice so low that it was only a rumble of sound in the kitchen. "Since we're living among them, it's not right to drink from them. We also don't believe it's right because we once were them."

"But don't you get—I dunno, like, cravings?" she asked, her soft voice sweet and kind and curious. It brought a smile to Alice's lips, reminding her of her own naiveté when she'd come to live with the Cullen family. Jasper's rolling laugh matched it, a half-growl sound because he was keeping his voice down for the sake of his aching and exhausted family.

"Yes. I'd be lying if I said we don't, but we're stronger than that. Or we try to be."

Beside her, Esme sighed long and deep, in through her nose and out through her mouth, as they felt the heat of the ill-used stove coming to life to the right of them. She kept her hands on the counter at the edge of the sink, her eyes on the window as she traced the gold of the sunlit trees and followed their path to the edge of their property.

"Life is so much more beautiful after a battle," Esme whispered, a sentiment that caught Alice off-guard.

"Mom?" she asked.

Blinking, Esme looked at her daughter. At first, the gaze suggested that she was seeing Alice for the first time, but then her eyes softened and a sad, but gentle smile spread across her face. Alice felt her mother's arm come around her side, holding her close while she pressed a light kiss on her daughter's forehead.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get so dark," Esme whispered and Alice could see the faint trace of laugh lines around her mouth as she smiled. She longed to reach out and touch them, to define them with her fingertips, as if to prove their existence, as if to ensure that yes, they were actually there and yes, that they were, in fact, alive, and not just living.

"It's okay," she said instead, and watched the moment float past her once more, only for her to begin mourning the loss of it. "I'm glad we're all safe, too."

Esme made a bit of a face. "Not entirely, but safer than before, yes. If what Jane said is any indication, then she and the others will be sticking around Washington for a little while."

Alice gave her mother a little nudge in the side, a move that made both of them rock in place. "Nothing's going to happen."

"That's not what I'm afraid of."

Frowning, Alice stepped back from her mother a bit. Heaving another sigh, Esme turned off the stove and removed the blood from the heat. She pulled a few small mugs from the cabinets and filled them halfway, distributing them among her other children, and the newborn child, before coming back to Alice, who already cradled a blue mug with the silhouettes of birds in flight etched into it with black ink. When Esme looked at her, her eyes held a grave seriousness that stuck every word Alice would've uttered into her throat if her mother hadn't spoken first.

"You and Bella are going to resolve this matter, aren't you?" she whispered, so quietly that even Jasper couldn't hear. "This matter of Turning Bella?"

Alice swallowed hard. From the corner of her eye, she felt both Bree's and Jasper's eyes on them before Jasper put his arm around the newborn's shoulders and they drifted off down the hall with their mugs in hand. Part of her had the insane desire to tell them not to spill, but if even Esme wasn't going to mention it, then she sure as hell wouldn't.

"Yes," Alice said at long last, her voice hardly a voice with the fear that Esme was instilling in her. "Of course."

When her mother relaxed, Alice felt the air flow back into her lungs. "Thank you. I'm glad to hear that. She's a wonderful girl, and you two seem so happy together. If the Volturi are watching, then the last thing we want to give them is a reason to doubt us."

Nodding hard, Alice put her cup down. "Yes, of course. I understand."

A fresh smile on her face, Esme touched her daughter's cheek, cupping the girl's chin in her hand. "That's my girl," she whispered, and then went to the living room to sit with her son.

The smell of wet dog tickled Alice's nose later that day as she sat on her couch and tried to read a book she didn't feel engrossed in. Rubbing her eyes, the vampire looked up to see Bella tapping on the glass of the door. Happy relief filled her chest and Alice hurried over to where her lover was standing, swinging the door open and pulling her human into her arms before a single word could be spoken.

"Aren't you worried about how badly I smell?" Bella joked, pressing her lips to Alice's neck.

Alice held her tighter. "I'm just glad to see you at all. I'd hoped you hadn't changed your mind about me." While she spoke, she felt Bella shaking her head.

"I've had plenty of time to consider us."

"All of two days?" Alice asked. She laughed a little, but even she could taste the slightly sour note to her words and wondered why they were coming out that way.

Bella pulled back enough to study her face and Alice did her best to erase the constrained expression of teasing from her eyes and mouth. When the human didn't say anything for a minute, the vampire shrugged.

"What?" she asked, keeping her tone light.

"I've known you for longer than two days, Alice. You've been there for me for years. You know this. You're my quiet love." She lifted a hand and ran it across Alice's brow, trailing her fingers down the clairvoyant's cheek and lips…and chin. A smile pulled on Alice's cheeks, one she couldn't help but feel. Before Bella could drop her hand entirely, Alice let go of the girl and caught those wandering fingers, pressing them to her lips for a soft, lingering kiss. The whisper of Bella's tiny intake of breath only made the vampire smile wider.

"You're nervous about something," Bella said, her words as quiet as her gasp had been.

Still holding Bella's hand, Alice nodded. She pulled the human girl closer and pressed her face to the soft folds of her hair, running her eyes along their light curls and waves and thinking how, even without having showered, they glowed beautifully in the sun. "We still have to tell Charlie," Alice whispered. When Bella sighed and leaned back again, a rolling-her-eyes expression on her face, the vampire gripped her harder so that she wouldn't be able to pull away entirely. "I'm still not sure how he's going to take it. He's a wonderful man, Bella. The last thing either of us wants to do is hurt him, and you know that." She bit her lip, casting her eyes out at the driveway where the red truck sat gathering rust. "And if he didn't believe you when you told him before that you were in love with me—"

Bella silenced her with a kiss. The touch came softly at first, a small, supple brush of mouths. When it was clear that Alice had swallowed her words, Bella kissed her harder, breathing deep until they held each other so close that they threatened to melt into one another. If Alice's heart had a beat anymore, it would've fluttered hard and her pulse would've sung in her ears. Instead, she received the extreme pleasure of listening to Bella's blood when they broke the kiss and pressed their cheeks together, each flushed with the other's insistence.

"We'll tell him," she promised, her voice breathy in Alice's ear. "We'll tell him together. He likes you better than he liked Edward. I don't think he's going to be too upset about the small change."

Nodding into her lover's hair, Alice had another thought. Opening her eyes, she whispered, "And what about your mother?"

Her human lover laughed a little bit, pulling away to slip her hands into Alice's. "I think she'll be all right. I mean, she's not that backwater, I don't think," she said. They studied each other's eyes for a long moment, each caught in the warmth of the Pacific Coast afternoon, despite how dreary and rainy the days before had been. For once, the sun trickled through the clouds and the trees and bathed them each in a dusky light that made their combined happiness seem to glitter and flit around the way stirred-up dust motes, or pixie dust, might.

"It's so funny, you giving me assurances," Alice whispered, a slight giggle in her voice as a grin spread over Bella's face. "I'm usually the one who talks you out of your nervousness."

The human shrugged, her cheeks warming with pleasure. "Maybe the tides will turn one day," she said before sobering and nodding to the house. "How's Jasper been? Are he and Bree still—"

Alice nodded, glancing over her shoulder at the half-darkened interior of the house, where even Edward's moping presence hadn't diminished the modern, sterile beauty of the Cullen home. "Apparently he and Bree are just sibling-like. I spoke to Edward and he hasn't seen any romantic thoughts pass through Jasper's head."

"That's good, though, right?" Bella asked, pulling Alice's attention back outside. There was a kind of determination written on her human lover's face, one that wanted to help place things and understand what was happening in the vampire world, even though she'd been standing inside of it the whole time. "I mean, it's not like he's thinking of dating someone super—I don't know. Young?"

A bubble of worry rose in Alice's chest, but she tried to keep it off her face as she nudged Bella's arm. "Like you and me, you mean?"

For a second, Bella didn't say anything. Then a blush spread over her cheeks and she shook her head. "Isn't that slightly different, though? I mean, Bree was, what, twelve when she was turned?"

That made Alice laugh, a warm, bubbly sound that she hadn't felt soaring through her in what felt like months. "Bella, not everyone who's younger than you is twelve, you know," she said.

"No, I'm serious. How old is she?"

"Probably fourteen? Fifteen? She's not twelve. She's hit puberty," Alice said around her laughter. She watched her lover consider that and then make a face.

"Okay, so a decent age. She's still a lot younger than Jasper."

"And you're still a lot younger than me, and even younger than Edward," Alice reminded her lover as she pulled her human into another hug. "The point is, they're not dating. Jasper doesn't think of her like that."

She felt Bella nod into her shoulder. "Good. That's a good thing," she said. After a second of silence that Alice could feel growing increasingly strained, the vampire leaned back and caught a flurry of emotions scurrying over her lover's face before Bella took a quick breath. "Speaking of age—"

"I won't turn you until after we talk to Charlie and Renee," Alice said, trying to cover all of her bases before Bella could consider them.

But the human girl shook her head. "No, that's not what I'm worried about," she said, wouldn't look Alice in the face. When she didn't say anything else, the vampire shrugged. Taking another deep breath, Bella met the vampire's gaze. "I gave Edward back the ring."

The small wave of shock that stole through Alice's body wasn't completely unfounded, but the feel of it threw the vampire off-guard a bit. "I figured you might've," she whispered, trying not to appear as clairvoyant as she was and hoping that Bella hadn't thought she'd been watching the exchange (she hadn't).

"But I have been thinking about it," Bella said, her words hastened as her fingers toyed more quickly with one another.

Alice shook her head. "How so? I'm sorry, I don't think I quite understand—"

"When we talk to Charlie and Renee, I want to be sure about us," Bella said, and Alice could feel her rushing forward with the conversation. "I didn't date a lot—or really at all—before I came to Forks and I want to know that, when I've made my choice about this, I've made it properly. And I want to know that you've made it properly, too," she said, looking most pointedly at Alice.

With a small, nervous giggle, the vampire shook her head. "I'm still not sure what you're getting at."

Bella sighed and ran her hands down Alice's arms until she could cradle the vampire's small hands in her own. She ran her fingers over the backs of Alice's knuckles and then raised each hand to her lips for a quiet kiss. "Alice, I love you. And I want that to be enough. I want us loving each other to be enough reason for anyone for why we're living together. I want us, in love, to be enough because it is for me."

"It's enough for you—to do what?" Alice asked. She could feel a tremor starting to build and crawl down her arms with the anticipation of something she was sure she hadn't seen coming yet. When Bella took a step back, she gave another nervous laugh. "Bella? My angel, what are you talking about?"

As the human lowered herself down to one knee, her eyes bright and glowing in the sun streaming onto the Cullen porch, Alice's every breath—those she'd taken upon being birthed into the world up to the very ones she needlessly, or so she thought, took now—caught up in her chest as if someone had taken a giant net and captured them.

Time seemed to have suspended over the air as Bella smiled and said, "Mary Alice Brandon Cullen, will you do me the honor of being my wife?"

TO BE CONTINUED

—

A/N: Thank you immensely to everyone who has read and reviewed, or simply read and liked, this story. Alice's and Bella's adventures will continue in the next installment, tentatively titled "Alice's Angel," which I'll be starting up tomorrow. Until then, thank you again, so much, for your time and happy reading.


End file.
